Why NASA's Mission to Rescue the Swift Observatory Ended in Failure
The Link spacecraft was to boost the orbit of the Swift Observatory, but NASA will no longer attempt that maneuver.Credit: NASA
No more chances. NASA has announced that, after problems and a valiant effort to overcome them, it has ended the mission to save the Swift Observatory from burning up in the atmosphere. The team will perform a few of the initial parts of the mission—those they can, anyway—so they can collect at least some data to support future missions.
The overall rescue was always a long shot, so it's not too surprising that things ended up this way. However, it's worth looking at how we got here.
The Swift Observatory is a three-part orbital tool designed to study X-rays and gamma rays. It's contributed to countless studies and produced many new insights; in fact, just yesterday, we publisheda story involving Swift as a primary platform for data...
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