NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory re-entered the atmosphere on 4 November 2026 at about 12:39 UTC over North Sumatra, Indonesia; most of the roughly 1.45-tonne craft burned up. Launched in November 2004, Swift could swing round within minutes to catch gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions known, and also watched comets, asteroids and flaring black holes. The strong solar maximum of 2024 puffed up the upper atmosphere and dragged it down; a private rescue craft, Katalyst’s LINK, launched in July but failed before reaching it. Penn State’s operations centre sent the last shutdown command on 20 October. NASA put the risk to anyone on the ground at about 1 in 2,100. Our take: there is no direct replacement, and NASA is now asking companies how to keep Hubble up too.
22 yearsin orbit, launched November 2004
~1.45 tmass, mostly burned up
1 : 2100NASA’s estimated risk to anyone on the ground