Its primary scientific objectives were: Explorer 45 had the capability for complete inflight control of the data format through the use of an onboard set of stored program instructions.

The satellite power system consisted of a rechargeable battery and an array of solar cells.

[3] The electric dipole antenna consisted of two boom-mounted graphite coated spheres, 13.97 cm (5.50 in) in diameter, with a center-to-center separation of 5.08 m (16.7 ft).

The electronics for the electric field experiment consisted of a step-frequency analyzer and a wideband receiver.

The wideband data was recorded on the ground and then processed by a spectrum analyzer to produce high-resolution frequency-time spectrograms.

[6] The electric field antenna consisted of two 13.97 cm (5.50 in) in diameter metal spheres mounted on the ends of two booms with a 5.08 m (16.7 ft) separation.

About 1300 orbits of data were obtained, covering magnetic local times from 08:00 to 23:00 hours through the noon sector.

The instrument was used to locate the plasmapause because its amplifiers became saturated by the fields within the spacecraft photosheath when the electron density was below about 60 per cc.

These, along with a commandable flipper mechanism to check zero levels, were housed in the sphere at the end of the single boom extending 76 cm (30 in) along the spin axis.

The experiment functioned normally until the latter part of March 1973 when a switch in the spacecraft analog multiplexer began to fail.

[8] This experiment consisted of two perpendicular search coil magnetometers, each mounted on a 61 cm (24 in) radial boom.

[10] This experiment contained two telescopes, each consisting of two surface barrier solid-state silicon detector elements.

The low-energy range telescope had detectors of thicknesses 100 and 300 micrometers, and was mounted behind a 2.2 kg (4.9 lb) broom magnet to sweep out electrons with energies less than 300-keV.

In addition, electrons of energy greater than 300-keV were detected via the coincidence mode of the low-energy range telescope.