Pioneer 10 Status 15 December 2002

Pioneer 10 distance from Sun : 81.86 AU Speed relative to the Sun:
12.228 km/sec (27,355 mph) Distance from Earth: 12.10 billion kilometers
(7.52 billion miles) Round-trip Light Time: 22 hours 25 minutes.

There was one more Pioneer 10 contact on 12/5/02. The Deep Space Station
(DSS) near Madrid (DSS-63) found the signal but could not lock onto the
receiver, and so no telemetry was received. The signal level was just
under the threshold value.

The uplink from DSS-14 at Goldstone, sent 12/4/02
at a power level of 325 kw, confirmed that the spacecraft signal is still
there (Round Trip Light Time 3D 22 hr 24 min). Project Phoenix also picked
up the signal from Pioneer 10 at Arecibo in Puerto Rico.