Explorer 7 was launched October 13, 1959 at 10:36 a.m. Eastern Time by a Juno II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to an orbit of 573 km by 1073 km and inclination of 50.27°. It was designed to measure solar x-ray and Lyman-alpha flux, trapped energetic particles, and heavy primary cosmic rays. Also Secondary objectives included collecting data on micrometeoroid penetration and molecular sputtering and studying the Earth-atmosphere heat balance. The Explorer 7 micrometeorite impacts studies can be found under the NASA paper "RESULTS OF MICROMETEORITE PENETRATION EXPERIMENT ON THE EXPLORER VII SATELLITE[1959 IOTA] LaGow and L. Secretan Goddard Space Flight Center