Pioneer program

The US Pioneer program of unmanned space missions was designed for planetary exploration. There were a number of such missions in the program, but the most notable were Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, which explored the outer planets and left the solar system. Both carry a golden plaque (see Pioneer plaque), depicting a man and a woman and information about the origin and the creators of the probes, should any extraterrestrials find them someday.

Related Topics:
US - Unmanned space missions - Pioneer 10 - Pioneer 11 - Solar system - Pioneer plaque - Extraterrestrials

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The earliest missions were attempts achieve Earth escape velocity, simply to show it was feasible and study the Moon. This included the first launch by NASA which was formed from the old NACA. Once this was achieved, attention turned to the inner solar system, before the bold flyby missions to Jupiter and Saturn. While successful, the missions returned much poorer images than the Voyagers five years later. In 1978, the end of the program saw a return to the inner solar system, with the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and Multiprobe, this time using orbital insertion rather than flyby missions.

Related Topics:
Escape velocity - Moon - NASA - NACA - Jupiter - Saturn - Voyagers - Pioneer Venus Orbiter - Multiprobe

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