On April 5, 1973, the NASA spacecraft Pioneer-11 towards the outer planets of the solar system. Pioneer-11 was the first spacecraft to fly by Saturn, passing by Jupiter and the asteroid belt along the way.
Pioneer-11
Pioneer project which includes two important missions Pioneer-10 And it would be Pioneer-11, it was designed for interplanetary exploration. These two probes had the task of exploring the outer planets of the solar system such as Jupiter and Saturn.
This spacecraft was launched about a month after its twin, Pioneer-10. Both spacecraft carried golden plaques with images and messages related to Earth to convey a message to extraterrestrial beings in case they encountered them in space.
These plaques include drawings of human figures and some symbols and diagrams that explain where the spacecraft came from.
Customer Exploration
Pioneer-11 launched directly at Jupiter in 1973, then used Jupiter’s gravity as a boost to propel it toward Saturn.
The spacecraft captured detailed images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and mapped Jupiter’s polar regions. He also calculated the mass of Jupiter’s moon Callisto.
Visiting Saturn
It took about four years for the spacecraft to reach Saturn and begin its observations of this planet. Finally, as Pioneer-11 passed through Saturn’s clouds, it collected data on the planet and its rings.
By this information, scientists confirmed that Saturn has a magnetic field. They also found that Saturn’s atmosphere consists mostly of liquid hydrogen.
The images also included Saturn’s orange moon, Titan, which was covered in clouds and extremely cold. In this exploration, two new moons of Saturn were also discovered, and the mission of this spacecraft ended in October of the same year.
Departure of Pioneer-11 from the solar system
Seventeen years after launch, Pioneer became the fourth spacecraft to leave the planetary sector of the Solar System by passing through Neptune.
The spacecraft is now on its way to interstellar space. The last contact with Pioneer-11 was made in November 1995, after which we lost contact with this spacecraft.
