Clementine was launched on 25 January 1994 at 16:34 UTC (12:34 PM EDT) from Vandenburg AFB aboard a Titan IIG rocket. After two Earth flybys, lunar insertion was achieved on February 21. Lunar mapping took place over approximately two months, in two parts. The first part consisted of a 5 hour elliptical polar orbit with a perilune of about 400 km at 28 degrees S latitude. After one month of mapping the orbit was rotated to a perilune of 29 degrees N latitude, where it remained for one more month. This allowed global imaging as well as altimetry coverage from 60 degrees S to 60 degrees N.
After leaving lunar orbit, a malfunction in one of the on-board computers on May 7 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.
More information on the Clementine mission, instruments, and early results can also be found in the Clementine special issue of Science magazine, Vol. 266, No. 5192, December 1994.
January 25 Launch (16:34 UTC) February 3 Leave Earth Orbit February 5 First Earth Flyby February 15 Second Earth Flyby February 19 Enter Lunar Orbit February 26 Start of Systematic Mapping - Cycle 1 (South) March 26 End of Cycle 1, Start of Cycle 2 (North) April 21 Completion of Cycle 2 May 5 Exit Lunar Orbit (May 7 Computer Malfunction (14:39 UTC)) *May Earth and Lunar Flybys *June-August Cruise to Geographos *August 31 Geographos Flyby * not accomplished due to malfunction
Clementine CD-ROMs - now available at NSSDC
Detailed information on Clementine experiments and data - NSSDC Master Catalog
Clementine to the Moon - more info and images
Information on the Clementine mission - from the CD-ROMs
Clementine Images of the Moon - Catalog of Spaceborne Imaging
More Clementine Images - NSSDC Photo Gallery
Clementine information at the PDS Imaging Node
Clementine images at USGS Astrogeology branch, Flagstaff
Clementine image browser
- at the Naval Research Lab Backgrounds Data Center
Clementine image browser - at CNES (France)
Clementine raw image CD-ROMs on Jukebox
- PDS Imaging Node
Clementine gravity and topography data
- PDS Geophysics Subnode
Clementine project home page
Clementine images on FTP - Arizona SEDS chapter
Clementine at the Naval Research Laboratory
Lunar and Planetary Institute
- including MPEGs of the south pole.
PDS Imaging Node
PDS Geosciences Node