An aging NASA telescope that has been in space for more than two decades is now barely keeping itself aloft.
In a matter of days, most projections have the Swift Observatory plummeting back toward Earth, with some of it potentially surviving the fiery descent to crash into the ocean.
The Swift Observatory's impending demise comes about three months after NASA and its commercial partners attempted to mount a failed rescue mission to extend the telescope's life. That involved launching a spacecraft up to Earth orbit with the objective of grabbing Swift and boosting it higher into space.
NASA leaders always knew the venture, the first of its kind to send a commercial robotic spacecraft to capture a government satellite never meant to be serviced mid-mission, was a long shot. Once it became apparent the rescue mission was doomed, NASA teams ordered Swift to spend its remaining weeks surveying as much of the cosmos as possible before it falls to Earth.
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The Swift Observatory
What is the Swift Observatory?
Launched in 2004, the Swift Observatory spent more than two decades orbiting Earth while studying a variety of cosmic phenomena. The satellite's primary objective, though, was to observe gamma-ray bursts — events triggered by the catastrophic deaths of massive stars and considered to be the most powerful types of explosions in the universe.
The satellite came equipped with three multiwavelength telescopes able to collect data in visible, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma-ray light.
"Swift played a major role in advancing our understanding of the changing universe and was part of a revolution in astrophysics that showed how critical rapid-response observations are to the entire community," Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. "Swift leaves us with an extraordinary archive of multiwavelength observations that will fuel new discoveries for decades more.”
Rescue mission fails
Residing in a region of space known as low-Earth orbit that is closer to the planet's atmosphere, the Swift Observatory began falling out of orbit faster than NASA anticipated due to increased solar storms since fall 2024.
That's what prompted NASA to mount a rescue mission in 2026 to save the telescope by sending another spacecraft to boost it to a higher orbit. Arizona-based Katalyst Space developed the 5-foot-tall LINK spacecraft with a $30 million contract from NASA that hitched a ride to space on a Northrop Grumman rocket.
The mission ultimately ended in failure. Weeks after the July launch from the Marshall Islands, NASA announced Aug. 19 that the LINK spacecraft encountered issues that would prevent it from reaching the Swift Observatory and using its robotic arms to clasp it and raise it back to about 370 miles high.
When will it fall back to Earth?
NASA's decision to call off the rescue mission sealed Swift's fate: the aging satellite is now destined to fall back to Earth this year.
In its latest update about the mission on Oct. 23, NASA indicated the observatory is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere "in the next few weeks." Because it is making an uncontrolled descent, predicting an exact date for reentry is difficult.
Most forecasts, though, project it could happen any day through Friday.
Once NASA officially ended the attempt to boost Swift's orbit, teams resumed the observatory's regular science observations, which were paused to minimize drag and extend its time in orbit. The observatory, which began to sink rapidly, now ended operations and was orbiting about 171 miles high as of Oct. 20 — much lower than even the 250-mile-high orbit of the International Space Station.
Will you be able to see its reentry?
While most of the observatory is expected to harmlessly burn up as it blazes through the atmosphere, some of its denser components could survive reentry and land in the ocean. However, seeing any part of the descent may be difficult with the naked eye.
"Only a handful of small, scorched fragments are expected to make it down, nothing recognizable as a telescope," Dean Sladen, an aerospace engineer at precision-components supplier Accu Components in the United Kingdom, said in a statement.
Where could it land?
Swift’s orbit passes over a band within about 21 degrees of the equator, most of which is ocean. The band, however, crosses populated parts of Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Latin America, Sladen said.
Is it a danger?
Because it most likely will reenter over the ocean or sparsely populated land, the Swift Observatory is highly unlikely to put anyone in harm's way.
"Satellites this size re-enter the atmosphere regularly," Sladen said, "and in nearly 70 years of spaceflight no one has ever been killed by falling space debris."
