Pioneer 1
Sign in to saveAlso known as Pioneer Able, Able 2
first satellite launched by NASA, unable to reach lunar orbit due to rocket guidance failure
Key facts
- Mission type
- Lunar orbiter
- Operator
- NASA
- Harvard designation
- 1958 Eta 1
- Cospar id
- 1958-007A
- Mission duration
- 1 day, 19 hours and 4 minutes
- Apogee
- 113,800 kilometers (70,700 mi)
- Manufacturer
- Space Technology Laboratories
- Launch mass
- 34.2 kilograms (75 lb)
- Launch date
- 11 October 1958, 08:42:00 ( 1958-10-11UTC08:42Z ) GMT
- Rocket
- Thor DM-18 Able I
- Launch site
- Cape Canaveral , LC-17A
- Decay date
- 13 October 1958, 03:46 ( 1958-10-13UTC03:47Z ) GMT
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Part of
- Pioneer program
- Named after
- A
- Operator
- NASA
- Followed by
- Pioneer 2
- Follows
- Pioneer 0
- Mass
- 38.28
- Manufacturer
- TRW Inc.
- Image
- Pioneer able.png
- Significant event
- atmospheric entry
Show 4 more facts
- Commons category
- Pioneer 1
- UTC date of spacecraft launch
- 1958-10-11
- time of object orbit decay
- 1958-10-13
- apoapsis
- 113854
via Wikidata · CC0
~7 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Pioneer 1 (also known as Able 2) was an American space probe, the first under the auspices of NASA, which was launched by a Thor-Able rocket on 11 October 1958. It was intended to orbit the Moon and make scientific measurements, but due to a guidance error failed to achieve lunar orbit and was ultimately destroyed upon reentering Earth's atmosphere. The flight, which lasted 43 hours and reached an apogee of 113,800 km (70,700 miles), was the second and most successful of the three Thor-Able space probes.
Spacecraft design
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Pioneer 1” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.