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Pioneer 3

Pioneer 3

The Pioneer 3 mission was one of the first attempts by the United States to send a spacecraft to the moon.

Mission Statistics

Launch Date

Dec 06, 1958

Type

Flyby Spacecraft

Target

Moon

Status

Past

About the mission

The Pioneer 3 mission was one of the first attempts by the United States to send a spacecraft to the moon. Because of a malfunction with the spacecraft's booster rocket, it lacked the velocity to make it beyond Earth orbit and fell back to Earth, burning up over Africa.

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.

Instruments

  • Geiger counters
› Mission Information on JPL History
› Pioneer 3 Information on Solar System Exploration
› Pioneer 3 Information on National Space Science Data Center

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