SUBJECT: CORNET/HOAGLAND/MOON FILE: UFO2397 Ä Area: UFO ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 5794 Date: 08-27-94 21:59 From: Richard Cassera Read: Yes Replied: No To: Bob Sweeney Mark: Subj: CORNET/HOAGLAND/MOON ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ I asked Dean Bakeris (bakeris@nrlvax.nrl.navy.mil), who works on Clementine at the Naval Research Laboratory, for a status report on the unfortunate spacecraft. You'll recall that after a successful mission orbiting the Moon for a couple of months, sending back 1.5 million images and a bunch of other data, Clementine left lunar orbit and began an Earth swingby. On 9 May a computer failure caused her to use up all her attitude-control propellant and left her spinning at a high rate. The accident made impossible the planned excursion to fly by the asteroid Geographos in August. Controllers attempted to change the orbit and spin rate with a series of maneuvers in late May. With a lot of luck, they hoped to keep Clementine orbiting Earth rather than sailing off into a heliocentric orbit. Here's what Dean has to say-- not good news: Clementine is pretty much a goner. Soon after the maneuvers to setup for the double lunar swingby, the s/c started losing power quickly despite successful efforts to move the solar panels to a more favorable position for sun soak. The s/c eventually went into undervoltage and most systems shut down automatically. The battery temperature is very low (<-5 C). Most power is being drawn directly off the solar panels by the transmitter which was left on. Many attempts have been made to shut the transmitter off with none being successful. The current orbit is not the desired one. The second lunar swingby was close to what we had wanted but we were unable to perform a correction maneuver before the swingby occurred due to the undervoltage condition. At this time, no maneuvers can be performed. On about July 20th, the s/c will be perturbed by the moon enough that it will leave its loose Earth orbit and enter a heliocentric orbit. Well, it was fun while it lasted. Let's do something like this again, real soon! ---EOF ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************