NASA ends the Swift observatory's mission ahead of reentry after a failed rescue
NASA says the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has ended operations and is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere in the next few weeks. On Oct. 20, after a commercial boost mission failed, its orbit dropped to 171 miles.
By the Bay Area Brief staff · Edited by Seamus McKenna · · 3 min read
Tree-lined University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto on a sunny morning. Photo: Brian Sterling / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped, resized and color-graded). Archive photo of the area; not a photo of the events in this story.
NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has stopped operating, NASA said Oct. 23. The spacecraft is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere in the next few weeks.
What happened
Recent solar activity increased atmospheric drag on Swift, and its orbit began to drop quickly.
A fast-turnaround commercial servicing mission ended in August without trying to boost the observatory. Space.com reports that the Katalyst LINK spacecraft had propulsion and reaction-wheel problems.
Swift then went back to science work and observed hundreds of targets, which increased drag even more.
On Oct. 20, Swift dropped to 171 miles (275 kilometers) and entered safe mode. The operations team at Penn State then sent a command that ended operations so it could be prepared for reentry.
Its legacy
Space.com notes that Swift launched in November 2004 with a two-year design life. Over more than two decades it studied gamma-ray bursts, exploding stars, black holes and comets.
Sources
This article is an original summary based on the following reporting. We encourage readers to visit the original sources for full coverage.
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