The U.S. Space Force predicted on October 31, 2026, that NASA’s Swift Observatory will reenter Earth's atmosphere on or around Friday, November 6. The 1.5-ton telescope was shut down in late October after it descended too low to maintain the steady position required for scientific observations.
The telescope’s descent follows the failure of a private rescue mission contracted by NASA a year ago. Katalyst Space launched a three-armed robot named Link in July 2026 to boost the observatory's orbit, but the robot failed to get closer than seven to nine miles of the telescope. Link itself reentered the atmosphere and was destroyed in September.
Mission officials reported that intense solar activity over recent years increased atmospheric drag, causing the observatory to lose altitude faster than anticipated. While most of the spacecraft is expected to burn up during reentry, NASA chief scientist Brad Cenko stated that pieces of dense tungsten and parts of the telescope's mirrors could survive the heat of friction and reach the surface.
For the global scientific community, the loss of Swift marks the end of a "first responder" instrument that served the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes for 22 years. Since its launch on November 20, 2004, the observatory recorded more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and 1,400 exploding stars. Astronomers rely on these rapid alerts to swivel larger telescopes toward transient cosmic events before they fade. John Nousek, the astronomer who led the control team at Pennsylvania State University, noted that the end of the mission was expected eventually, as objects in low-Earth orbit are subject to orbital decay.
NASA scientists are currently working to determine how to fill the data gap left by the observatory’s decommissioning. The spacecraft’s systems were officially powered down in late October 2026 once it was no longer stable enough for research. The U.S. Space Force will continue to track the telescope's exact path until its expected cremation on or about November 6, 2026. No specific time or coordinate for the final impact has been confirmed.