Clementine 2 to Size Up an Asteroid

Abstract

Oakland, California—Last year, a compact, sophisticated military spacecraft called Clementine wowed the planetary science community by mapping the moon at a total cost of $100 million. Next year's defense budget includes the first funding for Clementine's successor, which will continue in this vein of low-budget, high-stakes space exploration. Clementine 2 is set to rendezvous with as many as 3 nearby asteroids in 1998 to study their composition and structure—information that might someday be crucial to deflecting an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.