NASA's Swift space telescope ends its 22-year mission and will fall to Earth

Primary mission: two years

22 years in orbit

Launched in November 2004 for a two-year primary mission, Swift kept working for 22 years.

"Swift was designed as a satellite dedicated to studying gamma-ray bursts, outbursts that came and went so quickly that no one could target them with large telescopes to learn more."

— S. Bradley Cenko, principal investigator

Science operations stopped on Oct 20 after the telescope sank too low in its orbit for reliable measurements. An orbit-boost mission in August failed, and NASA expects Swift to break up on reentry in the next few weeks.