Pioneer 10 Status Report 12 Feb 2001

STATUS UPDATED: 09 February 2001

PIONEER MISSIONS

Pioneer 10 distance from Sun: 77.12 AU

Speed relative to the Sun: 12.24 km/sec (27,380 mph)

Distance from Earth: 11.47 billion kilometers (7.13 billion miles)

Round-trip Light Time: 21 hours 16 minutes

We have now successfully processed tracks, previously thought null.
The scientific data on the 5 and 6 August 2000 passes of Pioneer 10
were sent to Dr. Van Allen, who reports clean data. The cosmic ray
intensity was identical within statistics to that on DOY 190 (7/9/00),
the date of the last maneuver. There was no further decrease,
indicating that the Solar wind boundaries have yet to be reached.

Larry Lasher, Pioneer Project Manager

The latest Pioneer 10 attempt on January 16, to acquire the downlink
unfortunately was unsuccessful. Currently, we are attempting to get
tracks on the busy DSN schedule that would allow an uplink and downlink
support (competition for time includes Galileo, Cassini and Ulysses).
This will let the DSN send up a strong stable signal and try to lock
up with a coherent downlink signal. The effort is further complicated
by the 21 hour round-trip light time. It looks like we will have to
wait until March. However, there may be another downlink-only attempt
in a few weeks. Project Phoenix is observing Pioneer 10 at Arecibo in
Puerto Rico through the auspices of the SETI Institute. Their observation
dates are from Feb 26 to March 5 and from March 8 through 18 about an
hour each night.