NASA has forecast that its Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory will reenter Earth's atmosphere on November 4, nearly 22 years after launch. The renewed attention follows November 3 coverage of the forecast. The primary sources reviewed describe an expected return, rather than a confirmed reentry time or debris location.
NASA's November 2 notice cited a US Space Force estimate of 08:30 UTC on November 4, with an uncertainty of 11 hours. The Aerospace Corporation's tracking page separately listed 10:19 UTC, plus or minus two hours. These are predictions with uncertainty, not observations establishing when the spacecraft broke apart.
NASA expects most of the roughly 3,200-pound spacecraft to burn up, although some components may survive. Its orbital inclination confines possible surviving fragments to the band between 20.6 degrees north and south latitude. The agency said it and the Space Force would continue monitoring the return and revising their predictions.
The scientific mission had already ended. NASA says Swift made its final observation on October 20, when its low orbit exposed it to atmospheric drag that prevented steady telescope pointing. Launched on November 20, 2004 for a two-year primary mission, Swift rapidly located gamma-ray bursts and alerted other observatories before their afterglows faded.
NASA credits Swift with observing more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and more than 1,400 supernovae; its data contributed to about 7,000 scientific papers. Its public archive will remain available for research. The agency says it is seeking new ways to respond quickly to cosmic events while using existing missions to help fill the gap.
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