It extended the TSI measurement database begun by earlier ACRIM instruments on the NASA Solar Maximum Mission (SolarMax) (ACRIM-1: 1980–1989) and Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) (ACRIM-2: 1991–2001).

[8] Willson designed the active cavity radiometer type of sensor used by self-calibrating satellite TSI monitoring experiments.

The mission was controlled using the ACRIMSAT tracking station at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Table Mountain Observatory in Southern California.

With this rotating system of data comparison, anticipated slow changes in the first sensor, caused by exposure to the Sun and space, will be calibrated and removed from its measurement results.

Its total cost, including the instrument, launch, ground station, operations, and science team activities during its 14-year mission was less than US$50 million.

After several unsuccessful recovery attempts and extensive failure analysis, the mission was determined to be unrecoverable and officially terminated on 30 July 2014.