Pioneer 10

Mission overview

Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt and fly past Jupiter.

Mission data

Identity and engineering data from Wikidata (type-verified match · Q59103)

Sourced from Wikidata (community-maintained structured data, whose statements link to their own citations where provided); each value carries its Wikidata QID. A field with conflicting Wikidata values is omitted. Launch date is used only to cross-check the catalogue, never to override it. Wikidata lists a launch date of 1973-03-03, which disagrees with the catalogue's 1972-03-02; the catalogue value is kept. Fields Wikidata did not provide, or where conflicting values exist, are omitted, never invented.

Outcome & discoveries

Returned the first close-up images of Jupiter and became one of the most distant human-made objects.

Mission profile

Knowledge connections

• Operated byNASA
• Part of programPioneer program
• Mission targetJupiter

Related missions

Sources

The primary and reference sources this topic draws on.

• NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration

  Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.

  Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.