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- The Atmospheric Explorer-E (AE-E) spacecraft (Designation: 08440 / 75107A) was designed as a multi- sided polyhedron shaped frame with a mean diameter of 1.4 meters. AE-E was similar in construction and instrumentation to AE-C. AE-E was launched on 1975-11-20 and decayed on 1981-06-10. The purpose of the AE-C mission was to investigate the uppermost layer of the earth's atmosphere, the thermosphere, with emphasis on energy transfer and other controlling processes. Photochemical processes related to the absorption of solar UV radiation were studied by making coordinated measurements of reacting constituents and the solar input. Simultaneous two-spacecraft sampling was carried out at higher latitudes by the AE-D and AE-E spacecraft until the failure of AE-D on January 29, 1976, and then by (the re-activated) AE-C and AE-E spacecraft until AE-C re-entered the earth's atmosphere on December 12, 1978. The AE-E perigee swept through more than six full latitude cycles and two local time cycles during the first year after launch when the orbit was elliptical, and the perigee height was varied between 130 and 400 km. The circularization of the orbit around 390 km was made on November 20, 1976, and the spacecraft perigee was raised to this height whenever it had decayed to about 250 km. AE-E re-entered the earth's atmosphere on June 10, 1981 thus terminating the operations. The payload included instrumentation to measure: Solar UV Fluxes, the Composition of Positive Ions and Neutral Particles, the Density and Temperature of neutral particles, positive ions and electrons, Atmospheric airglow emissions, Photoelectron Energy Spectra, Proton and Electron Fluxes with particle energy up to 25 keV, and a backscatter UV spectrometer to monitor the atmospheric ozone content. Power was supplied by a solar cell array. The spacecraft used a PCM telemetry data system that operated in real time or using a tape recorder. Group: Platform_Details Entry_ID: AE-E Group: Platform_Identification Platform_Category: Earth Observation Satellites Platform_Series_or_Entity: AE (Atmosphere Explorer) Short_Name: AE-E Long_Name: Atmosphere Explorer E (Explorer 55) End_Group Group: Synonymous_Platform_Names Short_Name: Explorer 55 Short_Name: 08440 End_Group Group: Platform_Associated_Instruments Short_Name: UV SPECTROMETER End_Group Group: Orbit Perigee: 130 to 400 km End_Group Creation_Date: 2007-08-22 Online_Resource: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1975-107A Group: Platform_Logistics Launch_Date: 1975-11-20 Primary_Sponsor: NASA End_Group End_Group
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