- Email: [email protected]
3.3. Pioneer 11 final course set for Saturn
This is the first MOU signed by NASA with a foreign governmental agency for provision of Space Transportation (STS) launch services on a reimbursable basis.
3.3. PIONEER 11 FINAL COURSE SET FOR SATURNf3) Mission controllers have completed final course adjustments for the Pioneer 11 spacecraft’s encounter with Saturn on 1 September 1979, man’s first visit to the giant ringed planet. Spacecraft controllers at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., report that Pioneer 11 is now locked on to a trajectory that will bring it to within 30 000 km (18 000 miles) of the edge of Saturn’s outer ring. The spacecraft will then swing under the plane of the rings to 25 000 km (15 000 miles) from the planet’s surface. Pioneer 11 will take the first close-up color pictures of Saturn and its rings and make other first-time measurements of the planet’s magnetic field, atmosphere and other features. Without the course correction, Pioneer 11 would have flown by Saturn at a much greater distance (100 000 km: 60 000 miles) from the planet’s surface. “We’re going as close as we dare”, said Jack Dyer, chief of mission analysis at Ames. Getting any closer to the ring edge would risk impact with orbiting fragments in the planet’s ring plane. From data transmitted by pioneer to NASA tracking stations, it appears the spacecraft responded perfectly to a day-long series of commands to alter its trajectory. The course maneuver involved a series of timed rocket thrusts which nudged the spacecraft away from Earth and on to its desired flight path.
3.4. MARS ORBITER 2 SILENCED”)
NASA’s Viking Orbiter 2 has been shut down after orbiting the planet Mars 706 times over the past two years. The spacecraft ran out of attitude control gas on Monday, 24 July 1978, and engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., sent commands that shut it down at 020 EDT on Tuesday 25 July. A sister spacecraft, Viking Orbiter 1, and both Viking landers continue to function well almost three years after they were launched. Several months ago, Orbiter 2 developed a leak in one of its attitud~control jets. Fngineers managed to slow the leak but were unable to stem it completely. Early on 24 July the spacecraft vented the few millipounds of gas remaining in its tanks into space.
(3)NASA News Release No. 78-113 of 24 July 1978. nNASA News Release No. 78-l IS of 27 July 1978.
64
3.3. PIONEER 11 FINAL COURSE SET FOR SATURNf3) Mission controllers have completed final course adjustments for the Pioneer 11 spacecraft’s encounter with Saturn on 1 September 1979, man’s first visit to the giant ringed planet. Spacecraft controllers at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., report that Pioneer 11 is now locked on to a trajectory that will bring it to within 30 000 km (18 000 miles) of the edge of Saturn’s outer ring. The spacecraft will then swing under the plane of the rings to 25 000 km (15 000 miles) from the planet’s surface. Pioneer 11 will take the first close-up color pictures of Saturn and its rings and make other first-time measurements of the planet’s magnetic field, atmosphere and other features. Without the course correction, Pioneer 11 would have flown by Saturn at a much greater distance (100 000 km: 60 000 miles) from the planet’s surface. “We’re going as close as we dare”, said Jack Dyer, chief of mission analysis at Ames. Getting any closer to the ring edge would risk impact with orbiting fragments in the planet’s ring plane. From data transmitted by pioneer to NASA tracking stations, it appears the spacecraft responded perfectly to a day-long series of commands to alter its trajectory. The course maneuver involved a series of timed rocket thrusts which nudged the spacecraft away from Earth and on to its desired flight path.
3.4. MARS ORBITER 2 SILENCED”)
NASA’s Viking Orbiter 2 has been shut down after orbiting the planet Mars 706 times over the past two years. The spacecraft ran out of attitude control gas on Monday, 24 July 1978, and engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., sent commands that shut it down at 020 EDT on Tuesday 25 July. A sister spacecraft, Viking Orbiter 1, and both Viking landers continue to function well almost three years after they were launched. Several months ago, Orbiter 2 developed a leak in one of its attitud~control jets. Fngineers managed to slow the leak but were unable to stem it completely. Early on 24 July the spacecraft vented the few millipounds of gas remaining in its tanks into space.
(3)NASA News Release No. 78-113 of 24 July 1978. nNASA News Release No. 78-l IS of 27 July 1978.
64