Pioneer 10 Program

NASA’s Pioneer 10 program sent the first spacecraft to the outer planets and established a series of deep-space firsts: crossing the asteroid belt, flying beyond Mars, flying past Jupiter, and traveling onto an escape trajectory from the solar system. Launched on 2 March 1972, Pioneer 10 returned pioneering Jupiter and heliospheric measurements and sent its last signal to Earth on 23 January 2003.

Identity

Aliases: Pioneer 10Pioneer-FPioneer Jupiter MissionPioneer 1972
Domains: spaceflight
Name: Pioneer 10 Program
Status: completed
Types: explorationscienceresearchoperations

Details

Description: NASA’s Pioneer 10 program sent the first spacecraft to the outer planets and established a series of deep-space firsts: crossing the asteroid belt, flying beyond Mars, flying past Jupiter, and traveling onto an escape trajectory from the solar system. Launched on 2 March 1972, Pioneer 10 returned pioneering Jupiter and heliospheric measurements and sent its last signal to Earth on 23 January 2003.
End Date: 2003-01-23
Leads
Parent Program
Participants: -
Start Date: 1972-03-02

Assets & Meta

Creation Time: August 13, 2026 at 14:36:00 UTC
Updated Time: August 23, 2026 at 01:33:03 UTC
Image: Download

Other

Official Urls: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/pioneer-10/https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-pioneer-10-launches-to-explore-jupiter/https://science.nasa.gov/resource/pioneer-10-at-jupiter/https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/45-years-ago-pioneer-10-became-first-spacecraft-pass-through-asteroid-belt/