Pioneer 10 launched and traveled towards Jupiter. It was the first satellite to pass through an asteroid belt and also take close-up pictures of Jupiter with its closest encounter within 81,000 miles of the Jupiter’s cloud tops. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to obtain detailed images of Jupiter and its moons. Between 1972 and 1974, the Deep Space Network (DSN) ground stations had tracked the Pioneer 10 for over 21,000 hours. Pioneer 10 fell silent on its 30 year anniversary in 2002.
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