NASA’s Swift observatory ends science mission after nearly 22 years
NASA says atmospheric drag prevents steady telescope pointing and plans to use current missions to help fill the gap in rapid observations.
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NASA says atmospheric drag prevents steady telescope pointing and plans to use current missions to help fill the gap in rapid observations.
NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has ended its science mission because atmospheric drag prevents its telescopes from pointing steadily at their targets. In its October 23 announcement, NASA said the spacecraft was orbiting below 275 kilometres (171 miles) and had made its final observation on October 20.
Swift launched on November 20, 2004, and began observing the following month. Designed for a two-year primary mission, it instead collected observations for nearly 22 years.
Swift was designed to study gamma-ray bursts, powerful cosmic explosions whose fading light, called an afterglow, gives astronomers a brief opportunity to investigate them. According to mission principal investigator S. Bradley Cenko, Swift typically needed about a minute to detect and locate a burst, send its position to other observatories and turn its own telescopes toward it.
Its optical, ultraviolet and X-ray telescopes let astronomers examine the same event in different kinds of light and refine its location. NASA reports that Swift observed more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts during its mission.
Swift’s flexibility also supported observations beyond gamma-ray bursts. Astronomers could request observations of unexpected events, with commands sent from the ground in as little as a few minutes. They could also arrange monitoring lasting from minutes to months, and the scheduling system could accommodate up to 75 independent targets a day.
Although new observations have stopped, Swift’s full dataset remains publicly available. The roughly 12-terabyte archive includes nearly 22 years of brightness measurements, measurements of light across different wavelengths and more than 1.5 million images from its Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope.
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NASA plans to use current missions to help fill the rapid-observation gap while exploring ways to expand its telescope fleet. The possibilities include commercial capabilities that could reach orbit quickly and new missions. These are options under exploration, not a confirmed successor to Swift.
In its October 23 announcement, NASA said it expected Swift to re-enter the atmosphere within the next few weeks, without giving a fixed date.
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