Pioneer 9 Satellite ‘Dead’
United Press International
WASHINGTON — A little 18-year-old sun satellite called Pioneer 9 has refused to awaken from a long “coma” and has been declared dead after years of highly successful studies of interplanetary space, National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials reported today.
Pioneer Project Manager Richard Fimmel at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., said the 148-pound spacecraft’s last radio signal was received in May, 1983, and engineers have been unable to raise it since.
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