Pioneer 11 Stories

Spacecraft between two nosecone rocket farings.

10 Facts about the Pioneer Spacecraft

4 min read

Someone’s got to be first. In space, the first to explore beyond Mars were Pioneers 10 and 11, twin robots who charted the course to the cosmos.

Article2 years ago

40 Years Ago: Pioneer 11 First to Explore Saturn

4 min read

A rare alignment of the outer planets in the late 1970s provided an opportunity to explore that part of the solar system with relative ease, using gravity assists to send spacecraft from one planet to the next. To take advantage…

Article5 years ago
Illustration showing directions spacecraft are going.

NASA Establishes Contact with Famed Pioneer 10 Spacecraft

3 min read

NASA scientists have announced that they have contacted Pioneer 10, the plucky small spacecraft launched 29 years ago, ending speculation that its signal had finally fallen silent.

Article24 years ago

Famed NASA Pioneer Project Manager Charles Hall Dead at 79

4 min read

Charles (Charlie) F. Hall, manager of three of NASA's most daring and exciting early scientific space missions, died August 26 in a Mountain View, CA hospital following a brief illness.

Article25 years ago