NASAs Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) was designed to investigate how energy from the Sun is absorbed and re-radiated by the Earth. Understanding this process helps reveal patterns in Earths weather. One of the longest-running spacecraft missions to date, ERBS was launched on October 5, 1984 on the Space Shuttle Challenger and retired on October 14, 2005. The spacecraft was expected to have a two-year operation life, but ultimately, the mission provided scientific data about the Earths ozone layer for more than two decades.