Aging NASA Telescope Swift Nears Earth's Atmosphere After Failed Rescue

The U.S. Space Force predicts the aging NASA Swift Observatory will reenter Earth's atmosphere on or around Friday, capping a mission that has lasted over two decades.

A failed rescue attempt by a robotic spacecraft, named Link, launched by Katalyst Space a year ago, left the 1½-ton telescope unable to maintain its orbit. Link encountered issues after its July launch and could not reach the telescope, falling back to Earth in September.

Most of the Swift Observatory is expected to burn up upon reentry. However, NASA's Brad Cenko, the mission's chief scientist, noted that some denser components, including tungsten parts and mirror fragments, could potentially survive the atmospheric passage.

While surviving debris is most likely to fall into the ocean, the reentry zone includes populated areas across Africa, Australia, India, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America. The Space Force is actively tracking the telescope's descent.

The Swift team has expressed gratitude for the telescope's 22 years of service, during which it observed over 2,000 gamma ray bursts and 1,400 exploding stars. Swift was launched on November 20, 2004, with the primary mission of detecting these high-energy cosmic events.

Intense solar activity in recent years accelerated Swift's orbital decay beyond expectations. After the rescue mission was aborted, Swift resumed observations until late October, when its altitude became too low to maintain stable pointing for scientific instruments, leading to the shutdown of its systems.

Swift was designed to rapidly swivel toward celestial events, earning it its name. NASA utilized it as an initial responder, alerting more powerful telescopes like the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes to follow up on detected phenomena. Scientists are now working to address the gap left by Swift's operational end.