The science objectives of the ACRIMSAT Mission derive from the fields of climatology and solar physics. Small, sustained changes in the total solar irradiance of as little as 0.5% per century could be the primary causal factor for significant climate change on time scales of many decades. There is evidence that this has occurred in the past. Resolution of a century of TSI variation will require the flight of many instruments with overlapping missions to maintain the high precision of the data necessary to "see" the solar variability.

On the shortest time scales, solar global oscillations of low degree have been detected in the ACRIM I total irradiance data. This data may give us insights into pressure mode waves and gravity mode waves within the sun.