Pioneer 11

Pioneer 11

An artist's impression of a Pioneer spacecraft on its way to interstellar space.
Mission type	Planetary and heliosphere exploration
Operator	NASA / ARC
COSPAR ID	1973-019A
SATCAT no.	6421
Website	Pioneer Project website(archived) NASA Archive page
Mission duration	22 years, 5 months, 25 days
Spacecraft properties
Manufacturer	TRW
Launch mass	259 kilograms (571 lb)
Power	155 watts (at launch)
Start of mission
Launch date	April 6, 1973, 02:11:00 (1973-04-06UTC02:11Z) UTC
Rocket	Atlas SLV-3D Centaur-D1A Star-37E
Launch site	Cape Canaveral LC-36B
End of mission
Last contact	September 30, 1995 (1995-10-01)
Flyby of Jupiter
Closest approach	December 3, 1974
Distance	43,000 kilometers (27,000 miles)
Flyby of Saturn
Closest approach	September 1, 1979
Distance	21,000 kilometers (13,000 miles)
Pioneer

Pioneer 11 (also known as Pioneer G) was a NASA space probe to explore space and gather information. It was the second mission to visit Jupiter and the first mission to visit Saturn. The space probe was launched on April 5, 1973 and flew by Jupiter on December 2, 1974 and Saturn on September 1, 1979.

In 1983, Pioneer 11 was predicted to be surpassed by Voyager 1 in the distace to the Sun and later by Voyager 2 around March 1988.

The probe was last heard on November 24, 1995 when the last communication between Earth and the probe ended due to power limitation and vast diatance, when it was 44.1 AU (4.1 billion miles or 7.5 billion km) from Earth.

By Nov. 5, 2017, Pioneer 11 was estimated to be about 97.590 AU (9.1 billion miles or 14.599 billion kilometers) from Earth.

Both Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 had plaques etched in gold. The plaques were designed by a team lead by Carl Sagan to communicate with extraterrestrial life should the spacecraft come into contact with it.

By 2027, Pioneer 11 is predicted to have exited the heliosphere and entered interstellar space.

Related pages

• NASA
• Voyager 1
• Cassini-Huygens

Other websites

• Pioneer Project Home Page
• Pioneer 11 Profile Archived 2007-08-02 at the Wayback Machine by NASA's Solar System Exploration
• Ted Stryk's Pioneer 11 at Saturn page Archived 2007-10-04 at the Wayback Machine
• NSSDC Pioneer 11 page Archived 2006-06-15 at the Wayback Machine
• Pioneer Odyssey, NASA SP-396, 1977 Archived 2006-08-13 at the Wayback Machine - This is an entire book about the Pioneer 10 and 11 project, with all pictures and diagrams, on-line! Scroll down to click on the "Table of Contents" link.