It isn’t the ending that NASA was hoping for, but it’s the one we’ll have to learn to live with. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which has been in orbit for 22 years studying gamma-ray bursts has an orbit that is quickly decaying and will soon burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. Earlier this month, a daring mission was undertaken in partnership with NASA by Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the telescope to a higher orbit. However, the LINK orbiter, as the Katalyst vehicle is called, began experiencing thruster problems as it approached within nine (9) miles of the observatory.
Unfortunately, there is not enough time or resources for NASA to save the dying telescope, so they recently re-activated all of its science instruments and are attempting to get as much use out of it as possible before it plunges back to Earth. As of the time of this post, NASA doesn’t have an estimated date or time for when the telescope will re-enter the atmosphere, but preliminary estimates put the return between the end of October 2026 and early December 2026.