ERBS Re-entry to the Earth's Atmosphere on 09 January 2023

The Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on 08 January 2023 at 11:04 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09 January 2023 at 04:04 UTC) according to the US Space Force Space Track, with a final location off the coast of Alaska near the Aleutian Islands. This ended the ERBS mission of nearly 40 years in orbit around the Earth, though final science data collection ended in 2005.

More information about the re-entry of the ERBS can be found here:

• Space News
• ERBE Satellite Tracking
• NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive: ERBS

The ERBS was designed to be a 2-year mission to gather required radiation budget data, aerosol data, and ozone data to assess climate change and ozone depletion. The two experiments conducted were the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) and the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment II (SAGE II). It was delivered to orbit in October 1984 by NASA space shuttle Challenger. ERBE ended data collection in 1995, while SAGE II ended data collection in 2005. These data sets are archived at the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) and are available to download.