Nasa's Swift satellite telescope heads for fiery re-entry 22 years after launch

“Nasa's Swift satellite telescope heads for fiery re-entry 22 years after launch”

An aging Nasa satellite telescope that a robotic spacecraft was sent to retrieve on a failed rescue mission this summer was headed for a fiery re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday, nearly 22 years after it was launched into orbit. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory , weighing roughly 3,200 pounds (1,452 kg), was set to tumble out of orbit and burn up in the atmosphere somewhere over the tropics, with fragments surviving re-entry unlikely to threaten populated areas, according to Nasa.…