";s:4:"text";s:2806:" Pioneer P-3 (Atlas-Able-4) Pioneer P-3 was launched on an Atlas-D Able rocket on November 26, 1959.
In Depth: Pioneer 3. Pioneer 11. The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, which was launched on Aug. 8, 1978 and reached Venus on Dec. 9, 1978, was made of 5 separate probes: the probe transporter (referred to as the Bus), a large atmospheric entry probe (called Sounder), and three small probes. Mission Badge. Pioneer 11 was launched just over a year later than its twin. By the time Pioneer reached Saturn it was being closely followed by the Voyager probes. The spacecraft attained a maximum altitude of 1550 km (963 miles) before reentering Earth's atmosphere at 28.7 N, 1.9 E over NW Africa. Following close behind, it was the second spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt and visit Jupiter.
This mission was the first of two U.S.Army launches to the Moon. It then journeyed on to become the first spacecraft to visit Saturn. The spacecraft was destroyed by an explosion of the first (Thor booster no. Pioneer 3 was, however, equipped with a Geiger counter to study interplanetary radiation and managed to discover and map the outer Van Allen radiation belt around Earth before its demise.
Type: Flyby. A booster failure resulted in a failure to reach orbit.
127) stage 77 seconds after launch at 16 km altitude, 16 km downrange over the Atlantic. The three smaller probes released on Nov. 19, 1978. Dec. 7, 1958: Reentered Earth's atmosphere. Pioneer P-30 (Atlas-Able-5A) Pioneer P-30 was launched on an Atlas-D Able rocket on September 25, 1960.
Pioneer 2 was the last of the three project Able space probes designed to probe lunar and cislunar space.