Here's one for the "what goes up must come down" file. NASA's retired Earth Radiation Budget Satellite got a blazing welcome back to Earth on Sunday once nearly four decades in space. The Department of Defense confirmed the 5,400-pound (2,450-kilogram) satellite had reentered Earth's weather over the Bering Sea, NASA said on Monday.
ERBS made contributions to weather and weather science. Atmospheric reentry as a retirement picture was a long time coming for the old satellite, which originally launched from the Space Shuttle Challenger in late 1984.
The satellite had an imagined two-year-service life, but it blew past that mark. "For 21 of its existences in orbit, the ERBS actively investigated how the Earth absorbed and radiated energy from the sun, and made measurements of stratospheric ozone, water vapor, nitrogen dioxide, and aerosols," NASA said.
Spacefaring machines that come back to Earth are progenies to an intense reentry process. NASA expected most of ERBS to burn up, "but for some components to final the reentry." The return trajectory over a body of liquids means anything that wasn't toast likely fell harmlessly into the sea.
The satellite's uneventful fall back to its home planet is a bit of good news at a time when orbital location is increasingly crowded with junk, debris and defunct satellites. ERBS went out in a blaze of glory once its distinguished service to science.
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