McCarthy earned the number 932 after WCCSAS member Miskie submitted precise positions of the Earth-approaching asteroid
1620 Geographos to the IAU's Minor Planet Center in late February.
Not quite, but the Clementine spacecraft isn't likely to keep an August date with the near-Earth asteroid
1620 Geographos.
It was Nozette who in 1989 talked the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization into using its Star Wars technology to reconnoiter the Moon and then fly off to "attack" asteroid
1620 Geographos. Conceived on the back of a cocktail napkin, the high-risk, no-frills Clementine craft proved spectacularly successful in lunar orbit (S&T: August 1994, page 20).
That body, a 20-km-wide asteroid known as
1620 Geographos, lies only twice as far from Earth as the moon.
During a dress rehearsal for a planned flyby of minor planet
1620 Geographos the spacecraft opened four of its attitude-control thrusters and mistakenly let them fire for 11 minutes -- until the steering gas ran out.