Aging NASA telescope crashing to Earth after rescue mission fails
An aging NASA telescope that has been in space for more than two decades is now barely keeping itself aloft.
And 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. The operation 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 sending a commercial robotic spacecraft to capture a government satellite never meant to be serviced mid-mission – was a longshot. 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.
Here's what to know about the Swift Observatory, including when and where it may reenter Earth's atmosphere.
Outer space: 7 space missions to watch before end of 2026
What is the Swift Observatory?
Launched in 2004, NASA's 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, 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."
NASA mission to rescue Swift Observatory fails
Residing in a region of space known as low-Earth orbit that is closer to the planet's atmosphere, the Swift Observatory had begun falling out of orbit faster than NASA has 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.
But 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 the Swift Observatory 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 later in 2026.
In its latest update Oct. 23 about the mission, NASA indicated that the observatory is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere "in the next few weeks." Because the Swift Observatory is making an uncontrolled descent, predicting an exact date for reentry is difficult.
Most forecasts, though, project that it could happen any day through Friday, Nov. 6. For instance, the federally-funded Virginia-based Aerospace Corp., which tracks space debris, predicts the telescope will make a reentry on Wednesday, Nov. 4.
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 Swift Observatory, which has since begun to sink rapidly, has 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 NASA telescope during 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 to the USA TODAY Network.
Where could the Swift telescope land?
Swift's orbit passes over a band within about 21 degrees of the equator, most of which is ocean. The band, however, does cross populated parts of Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Latin America, Sladen said.
Is NASA's falling telescope a danger?
Because it's most likely due to 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."
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Aging NASA telescope crashing to Earth after rescue mission fails
