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Distant Pioneer Needs A New Home
Wayout - August 4, 1999 - 
Wayout - August 4, 1999 - The first interstellar explorer Pioneer 10, is alive and well as its plutonium battery continues to feed a trickle of energy from its decaying core. On July 10 Pioneer 10 was commanded to make a precession maneuver that will keep its antenna aligned towards Earth until at least September, when it will start to drift aimlessly unless funding is found.With the Lunar Prospector operations team winding down, the opportunity to continue some basic station keeping of Pioneer 10 will soon lapse. Since 1997, the Lunar Prospector mission team has used Pioneer 10 as a training operation, enabling ongoing precession maneuvers to keep the spacecraft aligned for NASA's Deep Space Network. However, if control is lost, Pioneer 10 will drift into eternity carrying only its etched gold card that may one day point someone to Sol. The spacecraft as of August 1, was 73.16 AUs relative to the Sun or some 11 billion kilometers from Earth while moving at 12.24 km/sec or 27,380 mph. The current round trip light time is now over 20 hours 25 minutes. While Pioneer 10's antenna continues to point towards Earth and the telemetry quality remains okay it will be possible to operate Pioneer 10 into September. Tracking is on the 70 meter antennas only. The signal level is between -177 to -179 dbm, with SNR from 0.8 to 1.5 dB. The other issue is of course the RTG pack, which currently has a bus voltage of around 27.5 volts (nominal value = 28 volts). But this power is still sufficient for limited science with Pioneer 10 returning data a few hours each week from the low-power Geiger-Tube-Telescope and the Charged Particle Instrument. Continuing GTT data from Pioneer 10 during the first part of 1999 has been of of special importance in determining whether or not Pioneer 10 is still interior to the heliopause. Neutron monitors on Earth at Climax and Goose Bay recorded a marked and rapid decrease in cosmic ray intensity of about 4 % during April and early May of 1998. If Pioneer 10 is still inside the heliopause, we can expect a decrease in cosmic-ray intensity at Pioneer 10 to occur during 1999. The approximate 9 month delay from Earth to Pioneer 10 corresponds to the distance of ~72 AU covered by the solar wind assuming a speed of 450 km/s. If Pioneer 10 has passed outside the heliopause into interstellar space, then the decrease in cosmic intensity will not be observed at Pioneer 10. Pioneer 10 will continue into interstellar space, heading generally for the red star Aldebaran, which forms the eye of Taurus (The Bull). Aldebaran is about 68 light years away and it will take Pioneer over 2 million years to reach it.
Pioneer at SpaceDaily
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