ERS-2 was launched on 21 April 1995.
ESA decommissioned ERS-2 in 2011 due to concerns about space debris.
ERS-2 was launched on 1995-04-21 as the second European Remote Sensing satellite alongside its twin ERS-1.
ERS-1 and ERS-2 carried scientific instruments that provided valuable data for over 15 years.
The European Space Agency issued an update on 2024-02-20 predicting ERS-2 will reenter at 11:32 a.m. Eastern with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.61 hours.
ERS-2 launched in 1995 to provide Earth science data with instruments that included a radar altimeter and a synthetic aperture radar mapper.
When ESA ended ERS-2 operations in 2011, it used the remaining propellant to lower the spacecraft’s orbit from 785 km to 573 km and passivated onboard systems such as batteries to prevent a debris-generating explosion.
The European Remote Sensing 2 (ERS-2) satellite is expected to reenter on 2024-02-21.
Data from scatterometers has been utilized for over 30 years for weather and wave forecasting since the ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites.