The mission's planet finding component was set up to serve as an important complement to the future missions designed to image and measure terrestrial and other exoplanets. SIM Lite was to perform an important task that these missions will not be capable of: determining planet masses. Another task that the SIM was envisioned to perform for the future missions will include providing the orbital characteristics of the planets. With this knowledge other missions can estimate the optimal times and projected star–planet separation angles for them to observe the terrestrial (and other) planets SIM has detected.