Pioneer 1

Pioneer 1
Pioneer 1 during assembly
NSSDC ID	1958-007A
Mission goal	Images of the lunar surface
Client	NASA
Launcher	Thor Able
Course of the mission
Start date	October 11, 1958, 23:21 UTC
launch pad	CCAFS LC-17
End date	October 13, 1958
10/11/1958 begin 10/13/1958 It burns up when it enters the earth's atmosphere

Pioneer 1 was a US spacecraft as part of the Pioneer program, it was the first spacecraft launched by the space agency NASA , founded on July 29, 1958 . Pioneer 1 was in a lunar orbit swivel and transmit television pictures of the lunar surface.

mission

After the successful start, in contrast to Pioneer 0 , the engines of the second stage of the launcher switched off around ten seconds too early. So the space probe could not leave the gravitational field of the earth. Instead, it only reached a summit height of about 113,000 kilometers and later burned up in the earth's atmosphere. During its 43-hour flight, Pioneer 1 was able to transmit a few data on the nature of the Earth's outer radiation belt .

Web links

Commons : Pioneer (space probe program)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Description of the Pioneer 1 mission on nasa.gov (English)
• Bernd Leitenberger: The Pioneer Program