Clementine (official name: Deep Space Program Science Experiment), launched January 25, 1994, was a joint project between the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and NASA. Its mission was to study the moon and a near-Earth asteroid 1620 Geographos.
The lunar mapping portion of the mission lasted about 2 months and was successfully completed. However, when it left lunar orbit, a computer glitch caused a thruster to fire until all of its fuel had been spent and left Clementine spinning out of control. The near-Earth asteroid section of the mission had to be abandoned.
1620 Geographos was discovered September 14, 1951, by Albert George Wilson and Rudolph Minkowski. It was named in honor of the National Geographic Society. It made its closest approach to Earth in 1994 (hence the timing of the mission) but won't come as close until 2586.
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