The intent of the ABLE‐5 program was to place a satellite into relatively close orbit around the Moon. The ABLE‐5 satellite has been designed as a 390‐lb scientific observatory to investigate some important aspects of the physics of space. It contains flux‐gate and search‐coil magnetometers, a set of radiation sensors (a plasma probe, scintillation counter, scintillation spectrometer, an ionization chamber and Geiger counter, cosmic‐ray telescope, and a solid‐state detector), and a micrometeorite counter. The general objective of these sensors is to acquire detailed information about the distribution of magnetic fields, the spectral density of charged particles, and meteoritic statistics.