NASA abandons mission to save Swift Observatory from a fiery death
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NASA engineers have confirmed they can’t spare the historic Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from a fiery demise, despite their best efforts. In July, mission specialists partnering with Katalyst Space Technologies launched the Link spacecraft with the hopes of capturing the orbital telescope and boosting it into a higher orbit. However,numerous complications forced the team to finally abandon the rescue attempt.
“This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement.
Deployed in 2004, the Swift Observatory spent over two decades gazing into some of the universe’s most powerful explosions. In 2022, the orbital space telescope even glimpsed the most luminous eruption ever seen—a gamma ray burst dubbed the BOAT (Brightest of all Time). But after years of unprecedented contributions to astronomy, the forces governing the cosmos are finally taking their toll as Earth’s gravitational pull slowly drags the telescope closer towards a point of no return. Meanwhile, increased solar wind activity hastened its orbital decay. NASA shut off Swift’s scientific instruments earlier this year in an attempt to delay the end, but Swift still remained on track to burn up amid an atmospheric re-entry within a few months.
Mission specialists were still determined to mount a last-ditch rescue effort. Over just nine months, engineers at Katalyst Space Technologies designed and built a three-armed spacecraft dubbed Link that would delicately capture Swift, then use thrusters to slowly boost the observatory back to its original orbital altitude(around 373 miles above Earth). If successful, the efforts would grant Swift years of additional life.
Unfortunately, the endeavor began to unravel a few weeks into Link’s journey, when the spacecraft accidentally entered into an uncontrollable spin. Engineers eventually stabilized it to some extent, but multiple persistent problems made it difficult to properly position the craft in orbit.
“We knew this was a high-risk, high-reward mission—a first-of-its kind attempt, developed on an unprecedented timeline driven by the sun’s activity,” said NASA Astrophysics Division director Shawn Domagal-Goldman.
Based on current calculations, Swift is now expected to begin its atmospheric re-entry no earlier than October. It is not currently known where it will begin its final descent, although it isn’t expected to pose any threat to people back home.
In the meantime, the mission is far from dead. NASA and Katalyst will continue to guide Link as best they can towards Swift to learn as much as possible for future, similar rendezvous attempts. These may even include a mission to pull off a similar orbital boost to the famous Hubble Space Telescope. After 36 years in service, the historic observatory is also suffering from a decaying orbit made worse by intense solar activity.
“We were all hoping for more science from Swift,” said Domagal-Goldman. “But we knew the takeaways from this mission would be worthwhile either way, and we have gained so much through the series of accomplishments up to this point.”
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