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NASA confirms Swift observatory reentered over Indonesia
NASA said Wednesday the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory reentered Earth's atmosphere at 7:39 a.m. EST over North Sumatra, ending a 22-year gamma-ray burst mission.
NASA said Wednesday that its Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory reentered Earth's atmosphere, ending a mission that began in 20041.
The U.S. Space Force confirmed the spacecraft came down at 7:39 a.m. EST over the North Sumatra region of Indonesia, near 3.4 degrees north latitude and 98.6 degrees east longitude, NASA said in an updated blog post1.
NASA said it expected most of the observatory to burn up during reentry, though some components may have survived1. Swift was built as a three-telescope observatory to study gamma-ray bursts, the universe's most powerful explosions, and later tracked other short-lived cosmic events1.
The agency had ended science operations in October after atmospheric drag dropped Swift too low to keep its telescopes stable; it had been designed for a two-year prime mission and operated for nearly 22 years1.
Sources
NASAOfficial source