Pick up to 4 missions to compare side-by-side. State lives in the URL — share the link and the comparison loads exactly as you left it.
Six nations have placed lunar orbiters since 2007 — a 4× increase in 15 years.
| Attribute | 🇪🇺 SMART-1 (Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology) Trust: Agency-primaryⓘ Last verified Remove × | 🇺🇸 Clementine (DSPSE) Deep Space Program Science Experiment Trust: Agency-primaryⓘ Last verified Remove × | 🇰🇷 KPLO (Danuri) Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter Active · Last updated 2026-06-01Trust: Agency-primaryⓘ Last verified Remove × |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency | ESA | USAF/NASA (BMDO) | KARI / NASA |
| Status | Deorbited | Mission Complete | Active |
| Mission type | Orbiter | Orbiter | Orbiter |
| Launch date | 2003-09-27 | 1994-01-25 | 2022-08-05 |
| End date | 2006-09-03 | 1994-07-20 | Active |
| Orbit | Polar orbit ~300 × 3,000 km (spiraled from GTO over 14 months using ion drive) | Polar elliptical orbit 425 × 2,942 km | 100 km circular polar orbit |
| Mass | 367 kgas of [1] | 424 kgas of [1] | 678 kgas of [1] ↑ Heaviest |
| Instruments | 4 instrumentsas of [1]AMIE camera, SIR near-IR spectrometer, D-CIXS X-ray spectrometer, XSM X-ray solar monitor | 6 cameras + laser ranger + charged particle telescopeas of [1] ↑ Most instruments | 6 instrumentsas of [1]LUTI, PolCam, KMAG, KGRS, LVND, ShadowCam (NASA contributed) ↑ Most instruments |
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| Outcome | ESA's first mission to the Moon and Europe's first use of Hall-effect ion propulsion in deep space. SMART-1 took 14 months to spiral from GTO to lunar orbit using its ion engine, validating technology for future missions. Deliberately impacted the Moon's near side on 3 September 2006. | A USAF/NASA joint mission using miniaturized military sensor technology. Clementine produced the first global multispectral map of the Moon and provided the first indirect evidence for polar water-ice via bistatic radar. A computer malfunction during the planned asteroid flyby phase left it in an unusable orbit. | South Korea's first lunar spacecraft, a joint KARI–NASA mission. The NASA-provided ShadowCam instrument has revealed unprecedented detail inside permanently shadowed polar craters that could host water-ice. The mission is on an extended science phase as of 2026. |
All 11 lunar orbital missions with primary-source citations from NASA, ESA, JAXA, ISRO, CNSA, and NASA NSSDCA. Coverage spans Clementine (1994) through LRO (active 2026). Pure URL state — bookmark or share the link and the comparison reproduces exactly.