Country of Origin: United States of America Approximate: 2 ft. 6
in. diameter x 2 ft. 6 in. tall, 92 lb. (76.2 x 76.2cm, 41.7kg)
Metal shell, solar cells, electronics Full-scale replica of the
Explorer VII spacecraft. The satellite was launched on October
13, 1959 atop a Juno II vehicle and successfully went into
orbit. The spacecraft carried an array of instruments designed
to study a broad range of radiation from the sun including
X-rays, the intensity of cosmic rays and the field of charged
particles in the ionosphere as well as micrometeorite impacts.
It provided data from its instruments for 13 months, during the
course of which it sent back readings acquired during a major
solar flare. The object was transferred to the Smithsonian
Institution by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in August
1972 and was restored in 2005. Transferred from the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration