Technical Specifications
Explorer 32 was a stainless steel, vacuum-sealed sphere, 0.889 meters (2.92 feet) in diameter. It carried one ion and two neutral mass spectrometers, three magnetron density gauges, and two electrostatic probes. It used a tape recorder to save data that was acquired when the satellite was not in range of one of the 13 ground stations. It was powered by silver-zinc batteries and a solar cell array.
The satellite had an operational life of 10 months. The two neutral mass spectrometers failed a few days after launch, but the remaining instruments operated throughout most of the satellite's lifetime. Explorer 32 suffered a depressurization which led to battery failure, at which point it ceased functioning.
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