Projects: Pioneer Anomaly
Project Updates
August 31 , 2007: A Letter from the Executive
Director of The Planetary Society
I’m writing this emergency letter to bring you up to date on what we’ve accomplished, and to ask for your immediate help— to ensure that we can complete this project, solve this mystery, and perhaps change what every scientist on Earth thinks about basic physics.
As has been the case from the very beginning with the Pioneer Anomaly, the problem we’re facing today starts with the quality of data. In the last two years, we’ve saved an astonishing treasure trove of information: enough to build an almost uninterrupted file of radiometric Doppler data that provides information on the spacecraft velocity covering over 30 years of the lives of these two spacecraft. This is something completely unprecedented in the history of our space programs. More »
March 28, 2007: A Letter from the Project
Director
Tthe existence of the anomaly is confirmed by seven independent
investigations using different navigational codes. The most important question
now is to identify the cause of this anomalous frequency drift discovered
in the Pioneer data. However,
its analysis is technically complex, as we will have to "re-fly" the
30-year Pioneer missions. In other words, we will have to virtually "launch" the
Pioneers, acquire their signals, perform the first orientation maneuver,
and go arc-by-arc all the way to Jupiter and Saturn (for Pioneer 11), then
fly by outer planets and leave the solar system while still transmitting
scientific and engineering information -- and do that until the last data
point. More »
August 10, 2006: Alternative Gravities
Recent progress in observational astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology has
raised important questions related to fundamental laws of nature. In fact,
this progress confronted us with a very challenging reality -- our universe
is filled up with some sort of mysterious stuff that we cannot see and do not
know the nature of, which we conveniently call "dark matter". More »
June 1, 2006: Data
Saved!
Several months ago, we went to you, our members, to help us save data from
the Pioneer mission so that we can help study what is known as the Pioneer “anomaly.” Thanks
to you, we have succeeded in saving and validating more data than we could
have hoped for. Until just recently, only about 11 years of the more than
30 years of Pioneer Doppler data (velocity data derived from the Doppler
shift of the received frequency of the Pioneer signal) had been analyzed,
and the mystery remained. More »
March 6, 2006: The
Final Attempt to Contact Pioneer 10
In early March 2006, for the very last time the
Earth was in a favorable position to receive Pioneer 10's radio signal.
It was considered possible that Pioneer 10 would still be able to
transmit, despite the age of its electronics, the extreme coldness
of deep space, and the diminishing amount of electrical power on
board. Pioneer Anomaly Team member Slava
Turyshev reports on the attempt. More »
January 2006: Update
from the Pioneer Anomaly Team
We're happy to report that the Pioneer Anomaly Team has successfully retrieved
much of the data and are preparing to begin analysis. Our detective work continues,
and here, Pioneer Anomaly Team members Slava Turyshev and Viktor Toth report
on their progress. More »
November 2005: 2005
Pioneer Anomaly Conference
Greetings from Switzerland! My name is Merek Chertkow. The Planetary Society
sent me to the 2005 Pioneer Anomaly Conference in Bern, Switzerland to
participate in and report on the exciting analyses, conclusions, and
new questions formed by scientists from around the world working to understand
the Pioneer anomaly. More »
May 10, 2005: “What
is a New Physics?”
If the Pioneer anomaly can be attributed to the spacecraft or the way we track
it, it could refine our understanding of spacecraft and the way they fly. If
the answer lies in the solar system environment, it would be a new discovery
about the nature of our universe. More »
May 10, 2005: Solve
the Mystery -- the Pioneer Anomaly
Something strange is happening in the outer reaches of our solar system. The
Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft are not where they are supposed to be. More »
|
[ what is this? ]