[X] My Assistant

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Just dug up a small booklet with nice logo of TRW 1979...
TRW : Thompson – Ramo – Wooldridge
American corporation established in 1958 by the merger of Thompson products with Ramo-Wooldridge Corp, renamed TRW Inc in 1965. TRW developed missile systems and the Pioneer 10 and 11 deep space probes. By 2002, Northrop Grumman acquired TRW defense and Goodrich Corporation took over TRW Aerospace group. Nowadays TRW Automotive Holdings Corp is the world’s leader in automotive safety.

[Dominik]

Hello,

the only picture I've found about the thrusters of Pioneer, is located in this picture:

It's only some art picture but the thrusters may look like the original ones. Hope that helps a bit.

[DDAVIS]

'It's only some art picture but the thrusters may look like the original ones'.

I painted this picture after I saw a story on the late night news program 'Nightline' indicating Pioneer 10 would obtain a last picture of the solar neighborhood as it crossed Neptunes orbit. I soon learned this was not the case and I resolved to create my own version of the view the spacecraft would have. I contacted Peter Waller, then head of NASA Ames Public Affairs, about this and he decided to commission a painting for the occassion.
I obtained spacecraft hardware images and made an original perspective drawing of the spacecraft, setting it apart from most other images of the spacecraft which are based on a single drawing from a distinct angle.
The navigation people then provided data on where the planets would appear in relation to the Sun, which appear as colored dots shown with exaggerated clarity. I painted this scene with attention thus paid to the details of the hardware as well as the background view. This is a cropped scan from a slide of the original acrylic painting. It is a monument to the days when artists inspired by ongoing space exploration were helped rather than hindered by official sources when they wanted to 'get it right'.

Don