NASA’s Swift telescope burns up over Indonesia after 22 years in orbit

NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory fell out of orbit and burned up over Indonesia on Nov. 4, ending a mission that lasted nearly 22 years. The US Space Force said the 1,452-kilogram satellite re-entered at 7:39 a.m. EST over North Sumatra, where people in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia saw a bright fireball streak across the sky. NASA said most of the spacecraft was expected to burn up high in the atmosphere, though some fragments could have survived, and no injuries or ground damage were reported. Swift launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts and later contributed to about 7,000 scientific papers. A July bid by Arizona startup Katalyst to raise the satellite’s orbit failed after its LINK rescue vehicle spun out of control.