Solar Mesosphere Explorer


The Solar Mesosphere Explorer was a U.S. unmanned 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.
Launched on October 6, 1981, on a Delta rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, the satellite returned data until April 4, 1989. The spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere on March 5, 1991.
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 where one hundred undergraduate and graduate students were involved.