Mission
The spacecraft was launched on an Air Force-Convair Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile coupled to Thor-Able upper stages including an Able x 248 rocket third stage, on November 26, 1959. The fiberglass payload shroud broke away 45 seconds after launch, subjecting the payload and third stage rocket to critical aerodynamic loads. At 104 seconds after launch, communications with the upper stages was lost and the payload was stripped off followed by the third stage. Telemetry indicated the first and second stages continued as programmed.
Read more about this topic: Pioneer P-3
Famous quotes containing the word mission:
“We never can tell how our lives may work to the account of the general good, and we are not wise enough to know if we have fulfilled our mission or not.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)
“Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry].” He said he didn’t know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate’s coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)