NASA’s Swift telescope re-enters after failed rescue attempt
NASA’s Swift Observatory re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday after about 22 years in orbit, ending a mission that tracked cosmic explosions. A private rescue attempt to boost its orbit failed earlier this year.
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Re-entry
The Daily Beast, NBC News, Breitbart and ABC News reported that Swift came down Wednesday, with tracking pointing to a re-entry near Indonesia. Coverage tied the decaying orbit to intense solar activity. NASA said much of the roughly 1½-ton craft was expected to burn up, with some denser pieces possibly surviving; agencies had described the odds of harm from debris as very low.
Failed rescue
Outlets reported NASA hired Katalyst Space for an orbit-boosting mission after Swift’s altitude dropped, but the robotic craft launched in July ran into trouble and itself came down in September. ZeroHedge and The Standard (HK) likewise covered the end of the mission. Swift launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts and other high-energy events.
Why this matters
Swift’s re-entry closes a long-running NASA astrophysics mission and underscores how hard it is to extend aging low-Earth-orbit science spacecraft once solar activity drags them down.