And why did Clementine ‘disappear’ after being declared destroyed only to reappear, without comment, years later in a totally different non-lunar orbit?
Unfortunately, on 07 May 1994, after the first Earth transfer orbit, a malfunction aboard the craft caused one of the attitude control thrusters to fire for 11 minutes, using up its fuel supply and causing Clementine to spin at 80 rpm. Under these conditions, the asteroid flyby could not yield useful results, so the spacecraft was put into a geocentric orbit passing through the Van Allen radiation belts to test the various components on board. The mission ended in June 1994 when the power level onboard dropped to a point where the telemetry from the spacecraft was no longer intelligible.
This doesn’t mention anything ‘years later.’ Could you provide a link?
I may have mis-remembered the years later bit - its been a while. But there is the rub - it apparently came back up again after the supposed end mission you mentioned and, as I recall, is or was still functional years later - Sorry I can't recall offhand where I saw that.