NASA's 22-year-old Swift satellite telescope falls from orbit in fiery finale - Reuters

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• NASA space telescope plunges to Earth after 22yrs

  Increased solar activity accelerated atmospheric drag on the aging Swift Observatory, culminating in its atmospheric reentry near Indonesia. The loss highlights the vulnerability of low-Earth orbit assets to space weather and follows an unsuccessful commercial attempt to elevate the craft. NASA is now applying lessons from this incident to evaluate private sector proposals to safeguard the Hubble Space Telescope from a similar fate.

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• A NASA space telescope plunged back to Earth after a mission that lasted 11 times longer than planned

  Decades of intense solar activity degraded the orbit of the 1 ½-ton Swift Observatory, culminating in its atmospheric reentry near Indonesia on Wednesday. The spacecraft had spent 22 years operating as a vital cosmic first responder by flagging exploding stars and gamma-ray bursts for other observatories. Its loss accelerates NASA's urgency to protect the aging Hubble Space Telescope from a similar fate caused by persistent solar storms.

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