Time Line and Current Status
The Pioneer 6–9 program has been touted as one of the least expensive of all NASA spacecraft programs in terms of scientific results per dollar spent. Although the spacecraft have not been regularly tracked for science data return in recent years, a successful telemetry contact with Pioneer 6 was made on December 8, 2000 to celebrate 35 years of continuous operation since launch. Its original design life expectancy was only 6 months.
Although NASA described Pioneer 6 as "extant" As of 26 March 2007 (2007 -03-26), there has been no contact since December 8, 2000. At this time Pioneer 6 had operated for 12,758 days, making it the oldest operating space probe until it was surpassed by Voyager 2 on August 13, 2012. It is also believed that contact is still possible with Pioneers 7 and 8. Only Pioneer 9 is definitely dead.
Read more about this topic: Pioneer 6, 7, 8, And 9
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