When was the first Pioneer space probe launched?
Pioneer 3 thousand miles into space. These Van Allen radiation belts surrounding the Earth are named for Dr. James Van Allen, in honor of his discovery. Pioneer 3 Pioneer 3 was a spin stabilized spacecraft launched at 05:45:12 UTC on 6 December 1958 by the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency in conjunction with the NASA, using a Juno II rocket. This spacecraft was intended as a lunar probe, but failed to go past the Moon and into a heliocentric orbit as planned, but did reach an altitude of 102,360 km before falling back to Earth. The revised spacecraft objectives were to measure
Space probe Entered orbit around dwarf planet Ceres in early 2015. Currently orbiting Ceres as of February 2017. First probe to Jupiter without atomic batteries, launched August 8, 2011. Chang'e 2 was deployed to orbit the Moon, visit Sun–Earth L2 Lagrangian point, and make a flyby of asteroid 4179 Toutatis. Along with "Pioneer 10", "Pioneer 11", and its sister space probe "Voyager 2", "Voyager 1" is now an interstellar probe. "Voyager 1" and "2" have both achieved solar escape velocity, meaning that their trajectories will not return them to the Solar System. Examples of space probe imaging telescope/cameras (focused on visible spectrum).