Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer

After an eighteen-month period when the program had no on-orbit capability, TOMS-Earth Probe launched on 2 July 1996, followed by ADEOS I. ADEOS I was launched on August 17, 1996, and the TOMS-instrument onboard provided data until the satellite which housed it lost power on June 30, 1997.

The satellite project was originally known as TOMS, back in 1989 when it was selected as a SMEX mission in the Explorer program.

The small, 295 kg satellite was built for NASA by TRW; the single instrument was the TOMS 3 spectrometer.

The launch delays led to alternations in the mission; the satellite was placed in a lower than originally planned orbit to achieve higher resolution and to enable more thorough study of UV-absorbing aerosols in the troposphere.

[2] The only total failure in the series was QuikTOMS, which was launched on September 21, 2001, on a Taurus rocket from Vandenberg AFB, but did not achieve orbit.