Swift observatory burns up over Sumatra, ending a 22-year hunt for cosmic explosions

NASA's Swift space telescope re-entered the atmosphere over northern Sumatra on Wednesday at 7.39 a.m. US Eastern time, 13.39 Belgian time, AccuWeather reported, citing astronomer Jonathan McDowell. Most of the roughly one-and-a-half-tonne spacecraft burned up, VRT NWS writes; it was not known whether any debris reached the ground. NASA had put the chance of anyone being hurt at about 1 in 2,100 and said any surviving fragments could only fall between 20.6 degrees north and south latitude.

Swift was launched on 20 November 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. The mission was planned for two years but lasted more than ten times as long. With three telescopes, the spacecraft could swing rapidly towards short-lived outbursts and alert other observatories. NASA lists observations of active galaxies around supermassive black holes, X-ray flares from stars, supernovae, comets and asteroids. According to AccuWeather, Swift recorded more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and 1,400 supernovae. In 2018 it was renamed after its first principal investigator, Neil Gehrels.

Swift had no propulsion of its own and kept sinking, partly because of intense solar activity, VRT NWS explains. NASA hired the US company Katalyst Space to push it into a higher orbit with the robotic satellite LINK, fitted with three grappling arms. LINK launched in July but, according to AccuWeather, began tumbling within two weeks; the mission was cancelled in mid-August and LINK itself fell back to Earth in late September. The rescue attempt cost about 30 million dollars. Swift's final observations ended on 20 October at an altitude of about 275 kilometres.