Mission
The spacecraft was launched on an Air Force-Convair Atlas D intercontinental, ballistic missile coupled to Thor-Able upper stages including an Able solid propellant third stage. The vehicle exploded at T+68 seconds after launch at an altitude of 12 km. The payload fell into the Atlantic Ocean 12 to 20 km from Cape Canaveral in about 20 meter deep water. Subsequent investigation revealed that the second stage had ignited during ascent, detonating the Atlas's fuel supply.
Read more about this topic: Pioneer P-31
Famous quotes containing the word mission:
“It is the mission of the twentieth century to elucidate the irrational.”
—Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1907–1961)
“Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story—a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“I am succeeding quite well in my work and the future looks well. What special mission is God preparing me for? Cutting off all earthly ties and isolating me as it were.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)