Calif. The SMEX missions are managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and are part of the larger Explorer Program. The Explorer Program enables missions through a variety of means to meet the needs of the scientific community and the NASA space science enterprise. Investigate the triggers and onset of solar flares and coronal mass ejections. It points the ultraviolet solar telescope at selected features of the Sun with an accuracy of a fraction of a degree. The spacecraft computer controls all on-board functions.
Power is provided from four deployed panels of gallium arsenide solar cells.
An S-band transponder is used for ground communication. Regions of the Sun ranging in temperatures from 16,000 to 16 million degrees Fahrenheit will be detected and examined. This represents about 25 percent of the Sun's disk or outer edge. A powerful data handling computer enables very flexible use of the CCD array including adaptive target selection, data compression and image stabilization. Therefore, the random processes associated with changes in the magnetic field have a very high probability of being observed completely.