They didn't, although protests around the launching of RTG-powered spacecraft would become commonplace (for example, the protests over plutonium on board Galileo and Cassini). "Pioneer and Voyager were both launched," recalled Dr Garry Hunt, a member of the Voyager imaging team, "before anybody thought 'Hang on guys, what happens if these spacecraft keel over and crash into Florida?'" If all went well, it would be too far from the Sun to use solar power. In addition to being the first spacecraft placed on an escape trajectory and the first to fly past Mars and Jupiter, Pioneer 10 was also the first to use all-nuclear electrical power from a pair of SNAP-19 radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs). Would it be like trying to walk across Oxford Street in rush hour and having to dodge all the cars – or what? The Pioneer spacecraft would be used to assess possible hazards in the asteroid belt and the environment around Jupiter (Pioneer 11 would go on to perform a Saturn flyby) as well as gathering as much data as possible.Ĭould it get through the asteroid belt?. The missions were a precursor to the famous Grand Tour of the Voyager probes. According to NASA, it's currently on a path to interstellar space, heading "generally" for the red star Aldebaran, 68 light years away, and it will "take Pioneer more than 2 million years to reach it." Pioneer 10 sent its last signal to Earth in 2003.
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