ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 16, 1995 TAG: 9512190014
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: REDONDO BEACH, CALIF.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
PIONEER 6, launched on a journey through the solar system in 1965, got an early happy birthday call Friday and answered back. Its value now is to see ``how long the darn thing will last.''
It's nice when your friends remember to call, especially when you're turning 30 and you're 31 million miles from home.
Pioneer 6, a spacecraft launched on a journey through the solar system on Dec. 16, 1965, and expected to be long burned-out by now, got a slightly early happy birthday call Friday and answered back.
``The signal is very solid, transmitting at 16 bits per second, which is not very fast [but] which is state of the art 30 years ago,'' said Brooks McKinney at spacecraft-builder TRW Inc. in Redondo Beach.
The call came from NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., via a ground station in Australia.
``It looks nominal. The spacecraft after 30 years is still ticking,'' said David Lozier, Pioneer flight director at Ames. Controllers expected to track the craft for about four hours.
The primary interest in the 140-pound spacecraft these days is its engineering value - ``how long the darn thing will last,'' as McKinney put it.
Designed to last just six months, Pioneer has now circled the sun more than 35 times, chalked up more than 18 billion miles and is NASA's oldest operating satellite, according to TRW.
The spacecraft is aging, however. Its solar cells have deteriorated and can now generate enough power to operate only two of its six instruments, a plasma analyzer and a cosmic ray detector. Those instruments would be turned on later today.
The decreased scientific value and limited availability of NASA's Deep Space Network tracking system allow Pioneer 6 officials to check up on it only twice a year.
The last contact, before today, was on July 29, when the spacecraft was 89 million miles from Earth.
``It's just a matter of longevity,'' said Lozier, ``Just check in every six months, see if its still there.''
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB