[3] The cylindrically shaped spacecraft, about 61 × 192 cm (24 × 76 in), with a mass of 100.8 kg (222 lb), was built around the burned-out fourth stage of the Scout launch vehicle that remained as part of the orbiting satellite.

Each cell was shielded by a microthin sheet of polymer plastic coated with aluminized Mylar 0.00063 cm (0.00025 in) thick.

During the 7.5 months in which the experiment transmitted useful data, telemeter A gave no indication of a break in either the 52-micron or the 76-micron copper wires on the card detectors.

Sixty foil gauge detectors, each in the shape of an equilateral triangle with a 11.60 cm (4.57 in) base, were installed around the forward usable half of the fourth-stage launch vehicle support structure.

Each detector consisted of a circuit obtained by an electrochemical deposition process, about 2.3E-3-mm thick attached to 0.025-mm Mylar and mounted on the underside of 304 stainless steel skin samples.

The experiment utilized thin grids of conducting gold deposited on the bottom surface of three stainless steel sheets of different thickness to record micrometeoroid penetration.

Data from the impact detectors were correlated with those of micrometeoroid effects on materials in the pressurized cell experiment.

It utilized pressurized cells shaped like half cylinders with walls of 25-, 51-, and 127-micron-thick beryllium copper to record micrometeoroid impacts.

[8] The spacecraft operated satisfactorily during its 7.5 months life (16 December 1962 to July 1963), and all mission objectives were accomplished.