NASA predicts aging Swift telescope will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere on Nov. 4

NASA announced that the Swift Observatory, a 1-½-ton space telescope launched in 2004, is slated to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere on Nov. 4 around 3:30 a.m. EST, with an uncertainty window of about 11 hours. The agency said most of the spacecraft will vaporize, but denser components made of tungsten and some mirror fragments could survive the descent.

"The risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth is unlikely — roughly 1 in 2,100," NASA said in a statement.

The U.S. Space Force is monitoring the trajectory, noting that any surviving debris is most likely to fall into the ocean, though the re-entry corridor stretches over parts of Africa, Australia, India, Southeast Asia and Central and South America.

Swift, which has spent 22 years studying gamma-ray bursts and supernovae, logged more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and 1,400 exploding stars before its systems were shut down in late October after a failed rescue attempt by a private contractor. The rescue robot, Link, was unable to reach the telescope and was lost in September.

"We've known this day would come since before Swift was launched. At least in low-Earth orbit, what goes up must come down. And that end is catastrophic," said astronomer John Nousek of Pennsylvania State University, who led the control team.

NASA and the Space Force will continue to track the re-entry and provide updates as the event unfolds.