The ERBS spacecraft was deployed from Space Shuttle Challenger on October 5, 1984 (first day of flight) using the Canadian-built RMS (Remote Manipulator System), a mechanical arm of about 16 m in length.

There was an attempt to bring battery 1 back online in August 1993, but it failed due to poor load sharing.

That cell failure caused battery voltage to drop so low that Attitude Control system became unreliable and the satellite went into a very slow tumble.

[9] In 2002, the satellite's perigee was lowered more than 50 km to ensure that the vehicle would naturally decay within 25 years after its end of mission.

This proved to be wise, because when the spacecraft was finally decommissioned in 2005 the propulsion and attitude control systems had become so degraded that the risks associated with eliminating the remaining fuel by performing post-science mission delta-V maneuvers were deemed too significant, and therefore those maneuvers were not performed.

The final commands opened the thrusters to allow the remaining fuel to seep out, and the transponders were powered off for the last time.

[11] The satellite is believed to have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on January 8, 2023, at 6:04 PM HAST over the Bering Sea near the Aleutian Islands.

Most of the satellite is believed to have been burned up in the atmosphere, but some large pieces may have survived and fallen to the sea.

That data was key in the international community's decision-making process during the 1987 Montreal Protocol Agreement, which has resulted in a near elimination of CFCs in industrialized countries.

It also created an aerosol data record on polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) which was crucial to understanding the ozone hole process.

[7][9] The non-scanner lost the ability to perform bi-weekly internal and Solar-calibrations, but no degradation in data quality was detected as a result.

[9] The Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) missions use an enhanced legacy instrument that continues the data record of ERBE.

An operational work-around was developed which allowed SAGE II to collect approximately 50 percent of the nominal science data.