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3 A Brief History of Space Flight
(7) On July 19, 2015, the Pioneer-11 was 91.672 AU away from the Sun, 90.716
AU from the Earth, and was flying at a velocity of 11.376 km/s.
(8) On March 29, 2020, the Pioneer-11 was 102.82 AU away from the Earth.
At present, the Pioneer-11 is moving at 2.4 AU per year to the direction of Scutum
constellation, and flying in the opposite direction of the Pioneer-10. In other words,
the Pioneer-10 is flying away from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, while the
Pioneer-11 is flying towards the center of the Galaxy.
There were 11 scientific instruments mounted on the Pioneer-10 and Pioneer-11
respectively, including imaging Photopolarimeter, Helium Vector Magnetometer,
Infrared Adiometer, Quadrispherical Plasma Analyzer, Ultraviolet Photometer,
Charged Particle Instrument, Cosmic Ray Telescope, Geiger Tube Telescope, Sisyphus Asteroid-Meteoroid Detector, Meteoroid Detector and Trapped Radiation
Detector. These scientific instruments were mainly used to detect and analyze the
magnetic field of planets and interplanetary space, the cosmic rays, the solar wind,
the neutral hydrogen at the heliosphere’s edge and interstellar space, the distribution,
size, mass, flux and speed of interstellar dust particles, the aurora and electromagnetic
waves of the outer solar system planets, the atmosphere of outer planet’s moons, as
well as the surface morphology of the Jupiter, Saturn and their moons. As the first
man-made spacecrafts to fly out of the solar system, the Pioneer-10 and Pioneer11 carried a gold-anodized aluminum plaque of drawing the spin transition of a
hydrogen atom, the location of the Sun and the Earth in the Galaxy, the flight path of
the spacecraft, and the naked figures of a man and woman. If the spacecraft would
be intercepted by the extraterrestrial intelligent life, the plaque could be used as the
card which conveys the greetings and related information of mankind on the Earth.
3.6.3 Pioneer Plaque and Pulsar Positioning
The Pioneer-10 and Pioneer-11 were manufactured by the Systems Development
Division of Thompson Ramo Wooldridge (TRW) Inc. in Redono Beach, California.
In November 1971, when the Pioneer-10 was being tested finally prior to shipment to
the Kennedy Space Center, a group of science correspondents from the U.S. national
press were invited to the TRW systems, Inc. to see the Pioneer-10 under the harsh
lights from an artificial Sun of the space simulator, and attend its briefing. Looking
at the Pioneer-10 through the portholes of the simulator, Eric Burgess (1920−2005),
who had ever been the early membership of the British Interplanetary Society and was
then the correspondents at the Christian Science Monitor, was imagining the scene
of the spacecraft to pass through the solar system and become the mankind’s first
emissary to another star [10]. He thought that the spacecraft should carry a special
message, to tell its finder a million or even a billion years later hence that the planet
Earth had evolved an intelligent species, who could think beyond its own times and
beyond its own solar system. He immediately mentioned his idea to Richard Hoagland
who was a freelance writer and Don Bane who was then the correspondent from the
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
(7) On July 19, 2015, the Pioneer-11 was 91.672 AU away from the Sun, 90.716
AU from the Earth, and was flying at a velocity of 11.376 km/s.
(8) On March 29, 2020, the Pioneer-11 was 102.82 AU away from the Earth.
At present, the Pioneer-11 is moving at 2.4 AU per year to the direction of Scutum
constellation, and flying in the opposite direction of the Pioneer-10. In other words,
the Pioneer-10 is flying away from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, while the
Pioneer-11 is flying towards the center of the Galaxy.
There were 11 scientific instruments mounted on the Pioneer-10 and Pioneer-11
respectively, including imaging Photopolarimeter, Helium Vector Magnetometer,
Infrared Adiometer, Quadrispherical Plasma Analyzer, Ultraviolet Photometer,
Charged Particle Instrument, Cosmic Ray Telescope, Geiger Tube Telescope, Sisyphus Asteroid-Meteoroid Detector, Meteoroid Detector and Trapped Radiation
Detector. These scientific instruments were mainly used to detect and analyze the
magnetic field of planets and interplanetary space, the cosmic rays, the solar wind,
the neutral hydrogen at the heliosphere’s edge and interstellar space, the distribution,
size, mass, flux and speed of interstellar dust particles, the aurora and electromagnetic
waves of the outer solar system planets, the atmosphere of outer planet’s moons, as
well as the surface morphology of the Jupiter, Saturn and their moons. As the first
man-made spacecrafts to fly out of the solar system, the Pioneer-10 and Pioneer11 carried a gold-anodized aluminum plaque of drawing the spin transition of a
hydrogen atom, the location of the Sun and the Earth in the Galaxy, the flight path of
the spacecraft, and the naked figures of a man and woman. If the spacecraft would
be intercepted by the extraterrestrial intelligent life, the plaque could be used as the
card which conveys the greetings and related information of mankind on the Earth.
3.6.3 Pioneer Plaque and Pulsar Positioning
The Pioneer-10 and Pioneer-11 were manufactured by the Systems Development
Division of Thompson Ramo Wooldridge (TRW) Inc. in Redono Beach, California.
In November 1971, when the Pioneer-10 was being tested finally prior to shipment to
the Kennedy Space Center, a group of science correspondents from the U.S. national
press were invited to the TRW systems, Inc. to see the Pioneer-10 under the harsh
lights from an artificial Sun of the space simulator, and attend its briefing. Looking
at the Pioneer-10 through the portholes of the simulator, Eric Burgess (1920−2005),
who had ever been the early membership of the British Interplanetary Society and was
then the correspondents at the Christian Science Monitor, was imagining the scene
of the spacecraft to pass through the solar system and become the mankind’s first
emissary to another star [10]. He thought that the spacecraft should carry a special
message, to tell its finder a million or even a billion years later hence that the planet
Earth had evolved an intelligent species, who could think beyond its own times and
beyond its own solar system. He immediately mentioned his idea to Richard Hoagland
who was a freelance writer and Don Bane who was then the correspondent from the