Pioneer 10

Pioneer 10 — spacecraft, shown live in Cosmoscope, a real-time 3D map of the universe.

The first spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt and fly past Jupiter. Contact was lost in 2003; it now drifts silently toward the star Aldebaran, arriving in about two million years.

Launched
2 Mar 1972
Status
Silent since 2003, coasting toward Aldebaran

Seeing Pioneer 10 in real time

Cosmoscope draws Pioneer 10 on its real trajectory, from mission ephemeris rather than an artist's impression. Open the live 3D view to see where Pioneer 10 is right now, how far it has travelled from the Sun, and how long its radio signal takes to reach Earth. Scrub the timeline to replay the route that took it there.

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