On Feb. 11, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory temporarily suspended most science operations in an effort to reduce atmospheric drag and slow the spacecraft’s orbital decay. Halting these activities will enable controllers to keep the spacecraft in an orientation that minimizes drag effects, extending its time in orbit in anticipation of a reboost mission.
“Normally, Swift quickly turns to view its targets — especially the fleeting, almost daily explosions called gamma-ray bursts — with multiple telescopes,” said principal investigator S. Bradley Cenko at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Swift’s Burst Alert Telescope will continue to detect gamma-ray bursts, but the spacecraft will no longer slew to observe targets with its other telescopes.”
Solar activity heats Earth’s atmosphere and causes it to puff outward, which increases drag on all spacecraft in low Earth orbit, gradually reducing their altitude over time. While NASA could have chosen to allow Swift to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, as many missions do at the end of their lifetimes, the agency instead contracted Katalyst Space Technologies of Flagstaff, Arizona, for a mission to boost the 21-year-old observatory into a higher orbit, extending its scientific life while also pioneering an important new capability for the nation.
To maximize the orbit boost’s chances of success, Swift’s average altitude needs to be above about 185 miles (about 300 kilometers). As of early Februa …