After 13 years of slow orbital radioactive decay , a legacy satellite will finally be put out of its miserableness by plunging through Earth ’s atm where it will incinerate up into tiny fragments .
The 2nd European Remote Sensing satellite , ERS-2 , isscheduledfor an atmospheric reentry in mid - February , terminate a 16 - yr deputation that revolutionized our apprehension of mood modification and how we observe Earth from space , the European Space Agency ( ESA ) announced this week .
ERS-2 launched in 1995 , four eld behind its sister satellite , ERS-1 , to assess the ocean ’s Earth’s surface temperature and winds at sea . At the time , the twain were the most sophisticated Earth reflection satellites ever build and they amass groundbreaking information on diminishing polar ice , interchange landed estate surfaces , ocean - level rising slope , warm up oceans , and atmospheric chemical science , accord to ESA . That data help scientist begin to understand the shock humans were having on planet Earth .
ERS-2 was launched in 1995, following its sister, the first European Remote Sensing satellite ERS-1, which was launched in 1991.Photo: ESA
In 2011 , ERS-2 nail its foreign mission and ESA began lower its EL from 487 miles ( 785 kilometer ) to 356 miles ( 573 kilometers ) to quash colliding with other satellite in orbit . Over the past 13 years , the retired planet has slowly been dragged down , with its altitude decreasing naturally over sentence principally due to solar activity .
At last , the orbiter has reached a detail of no return and is predicted to be completely annihilated in around a workweek when it reenters through Earth ’s atmosphere , subsequently burn up in the process .
ESA ’s Space Debris Office will be monitor the event and providing necessary update . Although ERS-2 ’s reentry will be uncontrolled , the blank space agency recentlyexperimented with a draw reentryof its Aeolus satellite in ordering to minimize the risk of damage on its way down . Other satellites are equip with assure reentry engineering that deorbits them to lower altitudes so that the impingement web site for possible debris is within a controlled sphere . ERS-2 is ancient and will therefore have a less graceful tumble towards Earth , but space federal agency are working on developing new mode to help keep our planet ’s orbit safe and sustainable .
As we officially say goodbye to ERS-2 , we must call up that the satellite inspired Earth - observing satellites that came after it such as the Envisat mission , the MetOp atmospheric condition satellite , and the Copernicus Sentinels .
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