January 23 2003 – NASA Loses Contact With Pioneer 10

January 23 2003 – NASA Loses Contact With Pioneer 10Rate this post After more than 30 years and 7.4 billion miles traveled, engineers at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California were finally unable to receive a transmission from Pioneer 10 on January 23, 2003. The first spacecraft to leave the solar system, the probe served well beyond its initial mission term of 21 months. When introduced in the 1960s, the concept of an interplanetary study was on the fringes of the mission profile the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was looking for. Driven by President of the United States John F. Kennedy’s proclamation that American feet would […]