NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory ends its more than 20-year mission as it approaches reentry through Earth’s atmosphere. According to Live Science, the spacecraft is expected to crash back to Earth “in the next few weeks,” signaling the final stage of its planned end-of-life descent.
Space.com reports NASA formally ended the mission after what it describes as a failed rescue effort. The outlet links the outcome to a private satellite that did not successfully rendezvous with the aging observatory in orbit, leaving NASA without a way to extend Swift’s operations.
NDTV instead attributes the mission’s end to orbital decay. It says Swift’s orbit decays so that atmospheric drag becomes too strong to maintain a stable position. Across the coverage, outlets agree Swift is no longer operating and is now nearing atmospheric entry, while they differ on whether the immediate trigger is failed attempts to save it or the underlying orbital decay that made continued operations impossible.
