New article published

Space Missions

NASA is sending a robot to save a falling telescope. It has weeks to act.

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has been hunting gamma-ray bursts since 2004. It was never designed to be serviced in orbit. NASA expected it to stay up until the early 2030s, but the current solar maximum has been more intense than predicted, heating Earth's upper atmosphere and increasing drag on low-orbit spacecraft more than the models anticipated. Swift is now on course to drop below a survivable altitude by October 2026.

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