On March 3, 1959, a year and a half after Sputnik, the U.S. notched a win in the Space Race with the launch of the first American spacecraft to leave Earth's gravity. Pioneer 4's mission was to fly ...

This series will explore historic space missions from the start of the Space Age to the present day, including both crewed and robotic missions. Here we will investigate the scientific rationale ...

Click to open image viewer. This is a cutaway model of Pioneer 4, one of the early satellites designed for lunar exploration. It was equipped with Geiger counters to measure radiation in space. The ...

This is a shortened version of the film "Time and Space: Pioneer 4." This film provides a brief narrative of the planning of the Pioneer 4 mission. It also features some of the information received ...

Pioneer 4 was the first American spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravitational pull as it passed within 58,983 km (36,650 miles) of the moon. The spacecraft did return data on the Moon radiation ...