Pioneer 7 Program

NASA’s Pioneer 7 Program was a heliocentric solar-orbit mission launched on 17 August 1966 to study the Sun’s magnetic fields and the solar wind. It investigated Earth’s magnetic tail and made the closest U.S. spacecraft approach to Halley’s comet on 20 March 1986 before its final contact on 31 March 1995.

Identity

Aliases: Pioneer 7Pioneer-BPioneer 7 missionPioneer solar orbiter
Domains: spaceflight
Name: Pioneer 7 Program
Status: completed
Types: explorationscienceresearchoperations

Details

Description: NASA’s Pioneer 7 Program was a heliocentric solar-orbit mission launched on 17 August 1966 to study the Sun’s magnetic fields and the solar wind. It investigated Earth’s magnetic tail and made the closest U.S. spacecraft approach to Halley’s comet on 20 March 1986 before its final contact on 31 March 1995.
End Date: 1995-03-31
Leads
Parent Program
Participants: -
Start Date: 1966-08-17

Assets & Meta

Creation Time: August 13, 2026 at 14:48:47 UTC
Updated Time: August 13, 2026 at 14:48:47 UTC

Other

Official Urls: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/pioneer-7/https://history.arc.nasa.gov/hist_pdfs/nasa_sp278-vol3.pdf