Explorer 60 was a small, versatile, and low-cost spacecraft made of two distinct parts: (1) the SAGE instrument module containing the detectors and the associated hardware, and (2) the base module containing the necessary data handling, power, communications, command, and attitude control subsystem to support the instrument mode.

[4] The objective of the SAGE mission was to obtain stratospheric aerosol and ozone data on a global scale for a better understanding of the Earth's environmental quality and radiation budget.

The instrument had a field of view of approximately 0.15 milliradian which resulted in a vertical resolution of about 1 km (0.62 mi).

Because of power problems, the data collection was limited to sunset events after June 1979, and was eventually terminated on 18 November 1981.

Explorer 60 detected and tracked also 5 volcanic eruption plumes that penetrated the stratosphere.