A second danger was posed by Jupiter itself. In order to use the gravity boost of Jupiter to speed on to another planet, a spacecraft would have to fly rather close to the giant. But this would mean passing right through the regions of energetic charged particles surrounding the planet. Some estimates of the number and energy of these particles indicated that the delicate electronic brains of a spacecraft would be damaged before it could penetrate this region. Again, only by going there could the danger be evaluated properly. The Pioneer Jupiter Mission In 1969 the U.S. Congress approved the Pioneer Jupiter Mission to provide a reconnaissance of interplanetary space between Earth and Jupiter and a first close look at the giant planet itself. The Project was assigned by NASA to the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. The primary objectives were defined by NASA: Explore the interplanetary medium beyond the orbit of Mars. Investigate the nature of the asteroid belt, assessing possible hazards to missions to the outer planets. Explore the environment of Jupiter, including its inner magnetosphere. The Pioneer spacecraft was designed for economy and reliability, based on previous experience at Ames with Pioneers 6 through 9, all of which had proven themselves by years of successful measurement of the interplanetary medium near the Earth. Unlike the Mariner class of spacecraft being used to investigate Venus and Mars, the Pioneer craft rotated continuously around an axis pointed toward the Earth. This spinning design was extremely stable, like the wheels of a fast-moving bicycle, and required less elaborate guidance than a nonspinning craft. In addition, the spin provided an ideal base for measurements of energetic particles and magnetic fields in space, since the motion of the spacecraft itself swept the viewing direction around the sky and allowed data to be acquired rapidly from many different directions. The only major disadvantage of a spinning spacecraft is that it does not allow a stabilized platform on which to mount cameras or other instruments that require exact pointing. Thus the spacecraft design was optimized for measurements of particles and fields in interplanetary space and in the Jovian magnetosphere, but had limited capability for observations of the planet and its satellites.