NASA space telescope plunges to Earth after two decades studying cosmic explosions

One of NASA’s premier space telescopes plunged to Earth on Wednesday, ending its 22-year investigation of the universe’s biggest explosions.

The Swift Observatory’s demise came less than three months after a long-shot rescue mission failed.

The U.S. Space Force confirmed Swift’s reentry near Indonesia after tracking its sinking orbit, the result of intense solar activity the past few years.

NASA hired a private company to whip together an orbit-boosting effort, but Katalyst Space's three-armed robotic craft ran into trouble following its July launch and came crashing down in September.

It was not immediately known how much of the 1 ½-ton spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere. NASA anticipated some of the denser pieces surviving.

Swift rocketed into orbit in 2004 on what was expected to be a two-year study of gamma ray bursts and exploding stars. It observed thousands of them over a mission that lasted 11 times longer than planned, serving as a first responder for other telescopes that could probe deeper.

NASA is gauging industry’s interest in mounting a rescue mission for another observatory whose orbit is being chipped away by solar storms: the Hubble Space Telescope. Launched in 1990, Hubble is expected to come crashing down by…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business