NASA Gives Up On Pioneer 10 610
Soft writes "Another Energizer Bunny has finally given out: Pioneer 10's generators have decayed to the point that DSN can no longer detect the probe's signals. It was the first spacecraft to penetrate the asteroid belt (1972) and fly by Jupiter (1973). So long and thanks for all the pic's..."
Another article (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Amateur time (Score:5, Informative)
" The antennas must capture Voyager information from a signal so weak that the power striking the antenna is only 10 exponent -16 watts (1 part in 10 quadrillion). A modern-day electronic digital watch operates at a power level 20 billion times greater than this feeble level. "
Then again I am no radio expert so maybe what you describe is feasible.
Re:No need to worry (Score:2, Informative)
+1 funny, tho.
Re:It's still serving part of its mission. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:communication via relay? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:communication via relay? (Score:5, Informative)
NASA is researching the possibility of setting up a network of satellites around the solar system that can relay information.
Mars, infact, has 2 relay satellites (MGS and ODY) in orbit that can relay information from rovers/landers/etc from the ground. More will be entering orbit still (ESA's, and another mars orbiter for 2005 or 2007 i think). They will all have the ability to relay information. The beagle lander will rely on this, for example.
But there is a problem. Those satellites can only relay signals from mars (in orbit, or on the ground). They cannot pick up a signal from Jupiter or Saturn, and retransmit it to earth because they do NOT have a reciever big enough to do that.
NASA's DSN (look it up) has 100 foot dish antennas to pick up signals from the outter solar system.
You CANNOT fit a 100 foot dish to a satellite and orbit it around Mars or Jupiter, etc, to pick up signals from further out and relay them to earth. Its simply not possible.
Because of this, spaceprobes can only relay signals to Earth from signals which are near by. Hence, MGS or ODY relaying from landers on he surface of mars, or Cassini relaying data from the huygens probe.
Cassini can't pick up signals from a probe around Nepture or Uranus and relay it to earth, because it just cannot possibly have a powerful enough reciever since that requires a huge dish.
One option, however, is to use laser (optical) instead of radio transmission, which may make this possible.
That may still have many other problems of its own, however.
D.
Re:Radioisotopes (Score:5, Informative)
Voyager had a disc. (Score:5, Informative)
The Voyager probes were sent out with a gold disc which contains, amongst other things, greetings from Kurt Waldheim (former Secretary-General of the UN) amongst ones in a bunch of languages, the "sounds of Earth", including Beethoven and Chuck Berry, the sound of waves against the shore, and various other things, and a bunch of images of Earth life, as well as some instructions as to how to play the disc. It was Carl Sagan's project, IIRC.
Of course, the odds of the probes ever being detected by extra-terrestrial intelligence is virtually zero, given their slow speed, tiny size, and the fact that they don't emit any signals (or more precisely won't by the time ET is in a position to spot them).
Re:Radioisotopes (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Distance. (Score:5, Informative)
Very good chance, though i think by pass you mean go farther out. I just can't see one pulling up and going by it in the passing lane. Make for fun video though.
Anyways. This is the problem with earth ship ideas and such. You build a huge ship and start leaving earth today, then 10 years later another group does. They by then have developed a faster earth ship, and soon pass you by. Thus you wasted years in space you could have been on earth.
We have much faster probes today. Ion engine powered one could probably catch up to it fast. I remember a TLC episode or similar talking about them and how fast they go. They don't start fast but they just keap accelarating forever (pretty much) so they hit insane speeds. The thing we sent to that astoroid and landed on had an ion engine. It traveled way faster then anything else we ever put out there.
Re:Amateur time (Score:2, Informative)
Icon of the Space Age (Score:5, Informative)
I remember a newspaper cartoon from the day. A man in a business suit and a woman in a dress were looking at the plaque on Pioneer, which was half buried in the ground. The man said to the woman, "They seem very similar to us, except that they don't wear clothes."
Re:Icon of the Space Age (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Radioisotopes (Score:1, Informative)
Then there's the case with Africa. You have 2 groups of people: leaders, sheep. The leaders were usually bent towards destroying the biggest world power, the US (surprise). The sheep who didnt follow got massacred. Then there's Kadafee. We believe he possibly did this "test". Still, we dont know if it was him, because somebody would have had to sell him the materials. the US wouldnt. The Russians wouldnt either. They knew how crazy he was.. and if they took us out, Russia would have been next. Isreal wouldnt have needed it either.. They'd be glowing too if they used it in the Middle east, which is the same reason Saddam probably wont use most of the WOMD. It'll hit him too.
Trust me... It'll stay a mystery. The only evidence was blown up at the south pole.
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Informative)
Apples and oranges. More like apples and rocks. First off, your metaphor breaks down as soon as you describe Pioneer 10 as a "satellite." It is most definately not a satellite.
Communications satellites are put into earth-orbit with more transponders than you'd care to shake a stick at, its intention being to relay as many communications signals as it can back and forth between ground-based stations. Pioneer was built with one transmitter to beam back periodic signals.
Communications satellites aren't built to last much longer than a few years to begin with. There is no reason to design one to last more than a dozen years or so when communications technology will outstrip the capabilities of the satellite in that time, requiring a replacement. It took Pioneer over a year just to get anywhere.
Communications satellites are only 8.5 light-minutes or so from the sun, so there isn't any reason to put a more durable or expensive power supply on them beyond solar panels and batteries for night-time operation. Jupiter alone is more than four times that distance away, and the technology limitations of the time required a (much) more durable atomic solution.
Geostationary satellites have to deal with those pesky laws of physics that dictate that they will always eventually fall out of orbit. Sure, they don't have to deal with atomspheric drag like LEO objects, but momentum transfer is still an issue. Pioneer isn't a satellite in the remotest sense of the word: It's obviously beyond escape velocity for our solar system, which means it will never come back.
"Pioneer went through the asteroid belt"
Lay off the Star Wars. Mass density in that region isn't anywhere near what Hollywood thinks it is. Space debris in earth orbit poses a far greater hazard than passing through the main asteroid belt.
"Can't we build reliable satellites of yesteryear?"
The true "satellites of yesteryear" aren't there any more. Try and find three US satellites still in earth orbit that were launched before, say, 1985.
Now, if you want to talk about space probes, why would we build another Pioneer or even a Voyager when we could build another Magellan or Galileo?
Sad... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Amateur time (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So long old friend (Score:5, Informative)
And there is no way you are going to tell me the space program was anything but politically motivated. It was a platform for Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon to show up the Russians. Johnson particularly used it to keep the nations mind off Vietnam.
If anything, the lackluster movement of our space program can be attributed to a LACK of political motivation.
Failure is part of the process. The success of Pioneer's 3-11 came as a result of the failures of pioneer 0-2. The ones where they didn't "get it right"
It's also not like those engineers in the good old days never killed anybody [rochester.edu]. We've had three major disasters exploring space in 67, 86, and 03. All about 15 years apart or so. Not bad considering this is easily the toughest and most dangerous job in the world.
Re:So long old friend (Score:3, Informative)
Well, no disrespect to anymone working in space programs, but there are a lot more dangerous jobs in the world. Just making the news now are the apparently attrocious conditions in China's mines [guardian.co.uk]: "More than 5,000 people were killed in coal mine accidents last year, according to the government."