A Telescope Launched From Cape Canaveral in 2004 Is About to Fall Back to Earth

Cape Canaveral — A space telescope that began its working life on a Florida launch pad almost 22 years ago is in its final days in orbit. NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is expected to plunge back to Earth on or around Friday, November 6, according to a U.S. Space Force prediction reported by the Associated Press, after a rushed rescue mission failed to lift it to safety.

Swift launched from Cape Canaveral on November 20, 2004, built to hunt the biggest explosions in the universe — gamma-ray bursts and supernovas — and to alert larger observatories, including Hubble and Webb, where to look. Intense solar activity over the past few years dragged the spacecraft down faster than planned. NASA hired the company Katalyst Space a year ago to mount an emergency rescue, but its three-armed robotic spacecraft, Link, ran into trouble after launching in July, never got closer than about 7 to 9 miles from Swift, and itself reentered the atmosphere in September.

Once the rescue was called off, Swift went back to work, detecting still more gamma-ray bursts, but by late October its orbit was too low for the spacecraft to hold steady, and its systems were shut down.

Most of the 1.5-ton observatory is expected to burn up on reentry. A handful of pieces made of tungsten — a metal denser than lead — and some mirror parts could survive, according to Brad Cenko, NASA's chief scientist for the mission. Any surviving wreckage will most likely fall into the ocean, though the possible reentry zone spans parts of Africa, Australia, India, Southeast Asia and Central and South America. The Space Force is tracking Swift's final path, and forecasts for a falling spacecraft can shift by days — Friday is a window, not a promise.