Pioneer 6
NASA's Pioneer 6 was the first of a series of heliocentric-orbit spacecraft designed to measure interplanetary phenomena from widely separated points in space. Launched on December 16, 1965, it returned solar-wind, solar-atmosphere, solar-corona, and comet-tail observations and helped form a ring of solar-weather stations with Pioneers 7, 8, and 9.
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Identity
- Aliases
- Pioneer 6Pioneer APioneer 6 Solar Weather Station
- Name
- Pioneer 6
- Status
- completed
Details
- Astronauts
- -
- Description
- NASA's Pioneer 6 was the first of a series of heliocentric-orbit spacecraft designed to measure interplanetary phenomena from widely separated points in space. Launched on December 16, 1965, it returned solar-wind, solar-atmosphere, solar-corona, and comet-tail observations and helped form a ring of solar-weather stations with Pioneers 7, 8, and 9.
- Destination
- Heliocentric orbit near Earth at approximately 0.814 AU perihelion and 0.985 AU aphelion (311.3-day period)
- End Date
- 1997-03-31
- Launch Site
- Outcome
- Long-duration heliophysics mission. Pioneer 6 entered heliocentric orbit and returned about 250 million readings by March 1966, helped study the solar corona and solar wind, detected Comet Kohoutek's tail with Pioneer 8, and remained operational for decades beyond its planned six-month lifetime, with instruments still operating into the 1990s. NASA declared the mission complete on March 31, 1997; the last contact was December 8, 2000.
- Programs
- Start Date
- 1965-12-16
- Vehicle Families
Links
- Official Url
- https://science.nasa.gov/mission/pioneer-6/
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- August 14, 2026 at 17:48:18 UTC
- Updated Time
- September 7, 2026 at 23:44:01 UTC
Other
- Affiliations
- Space Stations
- -
- Vehicles