The end of a long mission
The Swift observatory made its final observation on October 20, 2026, according to NASA’s statement published October 23 and updated October 26. Atmospheric drag in its low orbit prevented the telescopes from pointing with the required stability.
The data do not disappear with the satellite
NASA’s summary highlights a public 12-terabyte archive containing more than 1.5 million ultraviolet and optical images. Ending observations does not mean deleting that material or exhausting the questions it can help investigate.
Keep the dates separate
When sharing this news, distinguish when observations ended, when that was announced and when you are reading the summary. Nor should a reentry forecast be turned into confirmation that reentry has already happened.
To explore the subject, start with the statement and its linked resources. You do not need to download an entire archive to understand why preserving observations matters: a future comparison may depend on data collected many years earlier. The photograph shows Neil Gehrels beside the observatory in 2003; it is a historical image, not a picture of the mission ending in 2026.
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