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Flight‐qualifying space technologies with the Clementine Mission

1994; Wiley; Volume: 75; Issue: 14 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1029/94eo00850

2324-9250

P. L. Rustan,

Spacecraft and Cryogenic Technologies

The Clementine spacecraft (Figure 1) is the first Department of Defense (DOD) deep space mission. Celestial bodies such as the Moon and a near‐Earth‐asteroid (NEA) are ideal targets to flight‐qualify advanced light‐weight technologies developed by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). To demonstrate the performance of advanced lightweight systems, it is actually cheaper to fly the spacecraft using the Moon and an NEA as targets than to develop and deploy the targets required to test the payload in low‐Earth orbit. Since Clementine is an engineering mission, extensive diagnostics have been used to test the advanced systems in the sensor suite and subsystems. Performing a joint mission with NASA and forming a NASA‐selected science team to enhance the scientific value of the mission is making it possible to transfer these technologies for future space exploration, bringing true meaning to the term “dual use.”