Solar Mesosphere Explorer
The Solar Mesosphere Explorer was a 1980s NASA spacecraft to investigate the processes that create and destroy ozone in Earth's upper atmosphere. The mesosphere is a layer of the atmosphere extending from the top of the stratosphere to an altitude of about. The spacecraft carried five instruments to measure ozone, water vapor, and incoming solar radiation.
Mission
Explorer 64 studied the processes that create and destroy ozone in the Earth's mesosphere. Over its 7.5 years mission, SME measured ultraviolet solar flux, ozone density, and the density of other molecules important to the understanding of ozone chemistry. During the mission over one hundred undergraduate and graduate students were involved in nearly every aspect of SME operations, including planning and scheduling spacecraft and science activities, controlling the spacecraft and its ground support system, and analyzing spacecraft subsystem performance.Spacecraft
Managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Solar Mesosphere Explorer was built by Ball Space Systems and operated by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics of the University of Colorado Boulder.Characteristics:
- Mass: 437 kilograms;
- Power: Solar panels and nickel-cadmium batteries;
- Configuration: Cylinder 1.25 meter diameter by 1.7 meter high;
- Science instruments: Ultraviolet ozone spectrometer, Micrometre spectrometer, Nitrogen dioxide spectrometer, Four-channel infrared radiometer, Solar ultraviolet monitor, Solar proton alarm detector.