NASA's Swift shortens orbital lifetime for the sake of science

NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory may now be beyond rescue, but the team behind the spacecraft has reactivated its instruments to eke out a final few months of science data before it reenters Earth's atmosphere. The Ultraviolet/Optical and X-ray telescopes were reactivated last week, and the team hopes to return the Burst Alert Telescope to data collection during September. The former two telescopes were turned off in February to minimize drag and buy time for the reboost effort. The latter was halted in April to reduce power consumption and allow Swift's solar arrays to be positioned to further cut down on atmospheric drag. The reboost mission failed after control problems with the Katalyst Space LINK spacecraft ruled out an attempt...

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