The latest attempt to acquire a downlink connection with Pioneer 10 now ten and half light hours out from Sol has been unsuccessful.
Currently, the Pioneer 10 team is attempting to get time on the busy Deep Space Network that would allow commands to be exchanged maybe one last time before the probe quietly leaves sol behind.
This will let the DSN send up a strong stable signal and try to lock up with a coherent downlink signal. The effort is further complicated by the 21 hour round-trip light time.
However, there may be another downlink-only attempt in a few weeks. Project Phoenix is observing Pioneer 10 at Arecibo in Puerto Rico through the auspices of the SETI Institute. Their observation dates are from Feb 26 to March 5 and from March 8 through 18 about an hour
each night.
Pioneer 10 as of Jan. 23, 2001 was 77.010 AU from the Sun and travelling at a releative speed to the sun of 12.24 km/sec (27,380 mph). The probes distance from Earth was 11.42 billion kilometers (7.096 billion miles), with a round-trip Light Time of 21 hours 9.6 minutes.
Pioneer 10 will eventually enter its own galactic orbit separate from the sun for potentially billions of years. It is moving in a straight line away from the Sun at a constant velocity of about 12 km/sec.
Until Pioneer 10 reaches a distance of about 1.5 parsec (309,000 AUs) – about 126,000 years from now – it will be dominated by the gravitational field of the Sun. After that Pioneer 10 will be on an orbital path in the Milky Way galaxy influenced by the field of the stars that it passes.
