The Swift NASA telescope has ended its mission after being in space for 22 years. Although this is an exciting development in a trip that lasted more than 10 times longer than planned, the craft’s recovery was less than ideal due to a failed rescue mission that saw it plummet back to Earth.
Some Pieces of Swift May Have Survived Re-Entry
“NASA’s Swift telescope crashes back to Earth after failed rescue mission,” AccuWeather reported on Thursday, Nov. 5.
NASA also shared a post about the mission on Monday, Nov. 2, which was updated on Wednesday, Nov. 4, saying, “NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory re-entered Earth’s atmosphere Wednesday, almost 22 years after launch. The U.S. Space Force confirmed that the Swift spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at 7:39 a.m. EST Wednesday over the North Sumatra region of Indonesia, at approximately 3.4 degrees north latitude and 98.6 degrees east longitude.”
Although NASA was anticipating that the majority of Swift would burn up when it hit and moved through the atmosphere, “some components may have survived re-entry.”
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and honorary professor at Durham University, told Gizmodo, “That wouldn’t be surprising. It’s about a ton-and-a-half spacecraft, and satellites of that size often have some fraction — like 10% — survive reentry.”
McDowell added, “It wouldn’t be surprising if at least 100 kilograms [220 pounds] or so survive reentry.”
When Swift was launched in 2004, it “was a first-of-its-kind multiwavelength observatory designed to study the most powerful explosions in the cosmos [called gamma-ray bursts] using its three telescopes,” NASA explains.
Although it was initially scheduled for a two-year prime mission, NASA notes that it spent more than two decades “exploring the universe, observing a wide range of light, rapidly pointing at short-lived outbursts, and sending alerts to other facilities to help coordinate follow-up observations.”
The information gathered by Swift throughout its mission resulted in a better understanding of supermassive black hole-powered galaxies, X-ray flares of stars, supernova explosions and more.
Scientists Hope Swift Will Provide Information That Can Be Applied to New Space Missions
As Swift’s mission came to an end, Pennsylvania State University’s John Nousek, an astronomer who led the control team, spoke about the situation, in an email to the Associated Press, saying, “We’ve known this day would come since before Swift was launched. At least in low-Earth orbit, what goes up must come down. And that end is catastrophic.”
However, Nousek added, “Our fervent hope is that the lessons learned by the successes of Swift can be applied to new generations of space missions to accelerate our discoveries about the universe.”
Indeed, Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement (via AccuWeather) that thanks to Swift’s time in space lasting much longer than anticipated, it not only “delivered an incredible, lasting return on investment for the nation,” but also “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.”
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Rescue Mission Fails as NASA Telescope ‘Crashes’ After 22 Years — ‘That End Is Catastrophic’