Pioneer 5

  1960-001

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NASA's P-02 probe was launched at 1300:05 on 1960 Mar 11 by Thor Able IV from pad 17A at Cape Canaveral. The Thor cutoff came at T+2:40, followed by the Able stage burn which ended at T+4:20. The Altair third stage then fired for 40s to reach 11.125 km/s. Pioneer V was now in solar orbit, with a 312 day period. It transmitted until Jun 23. Pioneer V reached perihelion on Aug 10 and aphelion on 1961 Jan 31.

Mass was 43 kg. P-2 was built by STL under contract to AFBMD, which provided "technical assistance" to NASA. Control from AFBMD/Los Angeles.

In the launch press release, P-2 was considered the third 'paddlewheel' payload, following P-3 and S-2 (Explorer 6).

Pioneer 5
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1960 Mar 11	1300:05	Launch by Thor Able IV
	1302	T+2:40 Thor cutoff
	1302	Able burn
	1304:25	T+4:20 Able SECO	-1000?? x 200? x ?
	1304:30?	Altair burn 40s
	1305:10?	Altair burnout
	1305	Altair sep	11.125 km/s
	1320	Command Altair sep
1960 Jun 23		End of tx
1960 Aug 10		Perihelion

Payload:

• Micrometeorites (AFCRC/)

• Search coil magnetometer (STL/)

• High energy radiation counter (Chicago/)

• Total Radiation Flux (GM tube and ionization chamber) (Minnesota/)

• UHF Transmitter (test of interplanetary communication)