Pioneer 2

Pioneer 2 was the last of the three project Able space probes designed to probe lunar and cislunar space. Launch took place at 07:30:00 UTC on November 8, 1958. Once again, the first and second stage portion of the flight was uneventful, but the third stage of the launch vehicle failed to ignite, making it impossible for Pioneer 2 to achieve orbital velocity. An attempt to fire the vernier engines on the probe was unsuccessful and the spacecraft attained a maximum altitude of 1,550 km (960 mi) before reentering Earth's atmosphere at 28.7 N, 1.9 E over NW Africa. A small amount of data was obtained during the short flight, including evidence that the equatorial region around Earth has higher flux and higher energy radiation than previously considered and that the micrometeorite density is h

Pioneer 2

Pioneer 2 was the last of the three project Able space probes designed to probe lunar and cislunar space. Launch took place at 07:30:00 UTC on November 8, 1958. Once again, the first and second stage portion of the flight was uneventful, but the third stage of the launch vehicle failed to ignite, making it impossible for Pioneer 2 to achieve orbital velocity. An attempt to fire the vernier engines on the probe was unsuccessful and the spacecraft attained a maximum altitude of 1,550 km (960 mi) before reentering Earth's atmosphere at 28.7 N, 1.9 E over NW Africa. A small amount of data was obtained during the short flight, including evidence that the equatorial region around Earth has higher flux and higher energy radiation than previously considered and that the micrometeorite density is h