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The spacecraft recorded important heliophysics data in early August 1972 by registering a solar shock wave when it was at a distance of 2.2 AU (330 million km; 200 million mi). [38] On July 15, 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to enter the asteroid belt, [4] located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The project planners expected ...
Artist's depiction of Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter. The exploration of Jupiter has been conducted via close observations by automated spacecraft.It began with the arrival of Pioneer 10 into the Jovian system in 1973, and, as of 2024, has continued with eight further spacecraft missions in the vicinity of Jupiter and two more en route.
The first spacecraft to visit an asteroid was Pioneer 10, which flew past an unnamed asteroid on 2 August 1972; a distant incidental encounter while the probe was en route to Jupiter. The first dedicated mission was NEAR Shoemaker , which was launched in February 1996, and entered orbit around 433 Eros in February 2000, having first flown past ...
The United States launched the first reusable spacecraft, the Space Shuttle, on the 20th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, April 12, 1981. On November 15, 1988, the Soviet Union duplicated this with an uncrewed flight of the only Buran-class shuttle to fly, its first and only reusable spacecraft. It was never used again after the first flight ...
Pioneer 11's closer encounter with Jupiter allowed the spacecraft to discover Jupiter's intense radiation belts similar to Earth's Van Allen Belts. One of the peaks in charged particle flux was found near the orbit of Io. [1] Radio tracking during the encounters of both Pioneers with Io provided an improved estimate of the moon's mass.
The spacecraft has embarked on a 1.8 billion-mile journey toward Europa, a moon that scientists believe could mark humanity’s first recorded encounter with alien lifeforms in outer space.
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By BANU IBRAHIM Meet Philae, the European Space Agency's probe that just woke up from seven months in hibernation. Philae is the first spacecraft ever to land on a comet. Although it reached the ...