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This month marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft to Jupiter. This image, drawn in 1970, is an artist's rendering of the spacecraft trajectory, with planets labeled and a list of the instruments that were intended to be flown. Before the use of computer animation, artists were hired by JPL and NASA to depict a spacecraft in flight, for use in proposals or as a visual aid to promote the project during development.

Pioneer 10 was managed by NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The Pioneer F spacecraft (as it was known before launch) was designed and built by TRW Systems Group, Inc. Upon launch on March 2, 1972, the spacecraft was redesignated Pioneer 10. JPL developed three instruments that flew on the spacecraft: Magnetic Fields, S-Band Occultation, and Celestial Mechanics; as well as running the Deep Space Network which provided tracking and data system support. Caltech was responsible for the Jovian Infrared Thermal Structure experiment.

Pioneer was very successful, crossing the orbit of Mars and the asteroid belt beyond it; encountering, studying and photographing Jupiter; then crossing the orbits of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It left the solar system in 1983 and has been contacted several times in the past few years. As of July 2001, the spacecraft was still able to send a return signal to Earth. For information on the latest attempt to contact Pioneer 10, see the NASA Press Release.

For more information about the Pioneer 10 Project, please contact the JPL Archives or see the following National Space Science Data Center web sites: Pioneer 10 and the Experiment List.