[EAS]Thirty Years in Space

[pjk]

Subject:   Thirty Years in Space

A remarkable achievement.  --PJK
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(from WHAT'S NEW  Friday, 7 Mar 03)

VIRTUAL ASTRONAUT: PIONEER 10 SENDS ITS LAST SIGNAL TO EARTH. 
Its nuclear furnace has grown cold.  Launched in 1972 on a two-
year mission, the tiny 570-pound spacecraft was 30 years and 7.6
billion miles from home when it sent its last faint transmission
on 22 Jan 2003.  The first spacecraft to venture beyond Mars,
Pioneer 10 negotiated the unknown hazard of the asteroid belt to
send back the first close-up images of Jupiter.  It charted the
currents of the solar wind to the very edge of interstellar
space, while suffering the usual infirmities of old age: its
mechanical limbs arthritic; its senses dimmed by the battering of
radiation and micrometeoroids; circuits shut down to conserve
energy. It's last assignment was to find the heliopause, where
the solar wind is offset by the galactic wind, but in April 1997
it was passed by a younger, faster Voyager spacecraft.  It was
recalled to active duty by NASA's Deep Space Network as part a
communications study in support of a future interstellar probe. 
No matter, Pioneer 10 was expendable.  Requiescat in pace.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND and THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY.  
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the
University or the American Physical Society, but they should be.
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