Pioneer 10
- id: PRB-003
- launch_year: 1972
- launch_date: 1972-03-02
- operated_by: NASA
- visited: Jupiter
- carried: Geiger Tube Telescope
- people: Carl Sagan, James Van Allen
- status: completed
- confidence: believed-correct
- sources: NASA NSSDCA Master Catalog, JPL missions
Pioneer 10 launched on 2 March 1972, managed by NASA's Ames Research Center. It became the first spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt and, in December 1973, the first to fly past Jupiter, where James Van Allen's Geiger Tube Telescope measured the planet's intense radiation belts directly for the first time.
The spacecraft carries the Pioneer plaque — a small gold-anodized plate showing two human figures and the Sun's position among nearby pulsars — conceived with Carl Sagan and Frank Drake. Pioneer 10's last signal was received in January 2003, by which time it was billions of kilometers from home, headed out of the solar system.