NASA has shut down the Swift Observatory after atmospheric drag at low altitude stopped it from maintaining stable observations, ending a rapid-response mission whose public data archive remains available.
Swift made its final observation Oct. 20. NASA’s operations update says the spacecraft entered safe mode that day when it could no longer compensate for the increased drag. The operations team at Pennsylvania State University then sent the command to end science work.
NASA linked the accelerated orbital decline partly to recent solar activity, which increased atmospheric drag. Resuming observations after a pause also added drag, the agency said.
The shutdown followed a failed effort to raise Swift’s orbit. NASA awarded Katalyst Space Technologies $30 million for the attempted boost. On Aug. 18, NASA said the company’s LINK spacecraft would not capture or boost Swift because of an attitude-control issue.
NASA says Swift’s archive spans nearly 22 years of brightness records. Its image collection exceeds 1.5 million pictures from the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope, and the full dataset totals about 12 terabytes. The observatory’s data has contributed to about 7,000 scientific papers. During its mission, Swift observed more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and studied more than 1,400 supernova explosions.
Launched Nov. 20, 2004, Swift was built for a two-year primary mission. Its instruments could locate gamma-ray bursts and turn toward them quickly, giving other observatories an opportunity to make follow-up measurements.
In May 2005, Swift recorded an afterglow from GRB 050509B, whose burst lasted 0.03 seconds. NASA says the finding was compatible with explanations involving the merger of two neutron stars.
NASA is examining how existing space telescopes, commercial capabilities and future missions could support rapid follow-up of cosmic events. The agency expects Swift to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere in the next few weeks and has not set a specific date.
