Pioneer 10 Pioneer 10 Pioneer 10 (originally designated Pioneer F) is an American space probe, launched in 1972 and weighing , that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. Thereafter, "Pioneer 10" became the first of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity that will allow them to leave the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California, and the space probe was manufactured by TRW Inc. "Pioneer 10" was assembled around a hexagonal bus with a diameter parabolic dish high-gain antenna, and the spacecraft was spin stabilized around the axis of
Space Shuttle Atlantis after its previous mission, STS-51-J in October 1985. "Atlantis" was then used for ten flights between 1988 and 1992. Two of these, both flown in 1989, deployed the planetary probes "Magellan" to Venus (on STS-30) and "Galileo" to Jupiter (on STS-34). With STS-30 "Atlantis" became the first shuttle to launch an interplanetary probe. During another mission, STS-37 flown in 1991, "Atlantis" deployed the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Beginning in 1995 with STS-71, "Atlantis" made seven straight flights to the former Russian space station Mir as part of the Shuttle-Mir Program. STS-71 marked a number of firsts in human spaceflight: 100th