Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: SunkenCiv

No to mention the US Navy’s Clementine Moon Mapping Mission, which went silent after taking still classified moon mapping images, then turned up a few years ago in a solar orbit still transmitting ...


15 posted on 11/14/2022 12:22:41 PM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies ]


To: PIF

Clementine was a masterpiece of low-energy trajectories to destinations, as well as being pretty small for its time. Hi-res, low altitude pics of nearly the entire lunar surface were made for the first time.

[snip] After leaving lunar orbit, a malfunction in one of the on-board computers on May 7 [1994] at 14:39 UTC (9:39 AM EST) caused a thruster to fire until it had used up all of its fuel, leaving the spacecraft spinning at about 80 RPM with no spin control. This made the planned continuation of the mission, a flyby of the near-Earth asteroid Geographos, impossible. The spacecraft remained in geocentric orbit and continued testing the spacecraft components until the end of mission. [/snip]

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/searchforwater/clementine.html


16 posted on 11/14/2022 3:09:52 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson