The NASA Neil Gehrels Swift space telescope ceased operations on October 20, 2026, and on November 4 entered the atmosphere over North Sumatra (Indonesia) and largely burned up. This is reported by Phys.org with reference to The Conversation. The reason for the end of the mission was the lowering of the orbit: the telescope descended to about 275 km above the Earth, where the drag of the thin air prevented the equipment from maintaining a stable position.
Swift observed powerful cosmic explosions for about two decades. Its demise was a consequence not only of natural braking in the upper layers of the atmosphere, but also of the failure of a rescue mission launched in the summer of 2026.
The commercial robotic vehicle LINK was supposed to raise the telescope to a safer orbit - about 600 km. It was planned that LINK would approach Swift, capture it with one of its three robotic arms and, using its engines, push it higher. However, at the end of July LINK lost two of its three gyroscopic wheels - heavy flywheels that help the vehicle turn without expending fuel. Together with problems in the propulsion system, this led to uncontrolled rotation.
Engineers were able to slow the rotation using the engines: according to NASA, the rotation rate was reduced from about 9 degrees per second to 1.5. But in August NASA and Katalyst Space, which built LINK, canceled the capture and raise. The vehicle did nevertheless fly within 12-15 km of Swift, deployed its manipulators and tested its electric engines, but never came close enough to grab the telescope.
The main problem is fuel. A rescue vehicle is launched with a limited supply, which is distributed among all stages: approach, capture, raise and unforeseen situations. After losing control of the rotation, LINK did not have enough fuel left to safely capture Swift and raise its orbit. As specialists explain, a fuel supply calculated only for nominal operations leaves no possibility of correcting a malfunction, and each additional portion increases mass and launch cost.
The situation was complicated by the timeline. Since 2024, solar activity has increased the density of the upper layers of the atmosphere, and Swift began to descend faster than expected. NASA signed a contract with Katalyst in September 2025, and the company had less than a year to design, assemble, test and launch LINK, which took place on July 3, 2026. Compressed timelines in engineering mean less time for repeated checks and for creating spare parts, although public reports do not indicate whether this affected LINK's malfunctions.
Despite the failure, NASA noted that the mission provided experience in rapidly developing and operating a rescue vehicle. Engineers demonstrated the ability to upload new software to stabilize a damaged vehicle, and LINK tested its manipulators and simultaneously fired all three engines in orbit.
Swift is not the only telescope that may need such help. In the future, the possibility of raising the orbit of Hubble is being considered. Two approaches are being developed for rescuing satellites: the Astroscale ELSA-M vehicle is designed to capture satellites with a special docking platform installed before launch, while the European ClearSpace-1 is planned for 2029 to capture and remove from orbit the Proba-1 satellite, which has no such devices.
The story of LINK has shown that rescue requires not only a manipulator and sufficient thrust, but also a robust vehicle capable of recovering from its own failures and preserving fuel to complete the operation. In the case of Swift, the rescuer failed even before the rescue operation began.