More Details On:
Clementine Discovered Ice on the Moon
This image is a mosaic from the
photographs Clementine took of the lunar south pole, where ice was discovered in
a creator that never sees the sunlight.
Click here for a full screen view of the lunar south pole, the dark creater in the center is where the ice is located.
The following text is the official press release announcing that Clementine had found ice. This statement was made more than two years after Clementine orbited the Moon.
News Release
Tuesday, December 3, 1996
Subject: Clementine Spacecraft Program
MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS
After interpreting data and pictures taken during the Clementine spacecraft mission, a joint Department of Defense and NASA program, scientists reveal that deposits of ice could exist in permanently dark regions near the south pole of the Moon. Initial estimates suggest that the ice deposit area is the size of a small lake (60-120 thousand cubic meters), comparable to four football fields 16 feet deep. The ice is suggested to be in a lunar crater which has a depth of one-and-a-half times than the height of Mount Everest with a the rim circumference twice the size the island of Puerto Rico.
Originally sponsored by The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization the Clementine mission was designed to test new technology that would track and intercept hostile missiles, using celestial bodies such as the Moon. Clementine made history on January 25, 1994, by being launched in half the time at a quarter of the cost of other comparable satellites. Several advanced lightweight cameras onboard Clementine recorded approximately 1.5 million images of over 99.9 percent of the Moon's surface, including laser radar measurements which produced a topographical map of the lunar surface.
The discovery of ice on the Moon has enormous implications for a permanent human return to the Moon. Water ice is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, two elements vital to human life and space operations. Lunar ice could be mined and disassociated into hydrogen and oxygen by electric power provided by solar panels or a nuclear generator. This hydrogen and oxygen is a prime rocket fuel, giving the space program the ability to re-fuel rockets at a lunar "filling station" and making transport to and from the Moon more economical by at least a factor of ten. Additionally, the water from lunar polar ice and oxygen generated from the ice could support a permanent facility or outpost on the Moon. The discovery of this material, rare on the Moon but so vital to human life and operations in space, will make human expansion into the Solar System easier and reaffirms the immense value of the Earth's Moon as the stepping stone into the universe.
The Clementine mission was sponsored and managed by the BMDO. The satellite was designed and integrated by the Naval Research Laboratory and the sensor instruments were integrated by the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The science team was sponsored by NASA who also provided the Deep Space Network of antennas to receive Clementine's image transmissions to the Earth. Clementine was launched aboard a Titan II missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
- END -
Homepage || Background || Mission || Spacecraft || Sensors || Data || Images || Participating Organizations || Publications || Related Links || Search this Site
webmaster@pxi.com