February 27
The Swiftly Mission: Swift Lift in a Year
Brad Cenko, UMD/GSFC
Abstract: Since its launch in 2004, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has been a workhorse of NASA’s time-domain portfolio. Thanks to the continuously growing ecosystem of wide-field and multi-messenger survey facilities, demand for Swift target-of-opportunity (ToO) observations have grown dramatically over the lifetime of the mission, to the point where Swift receives 5 ToO requests each day from the astrophysics community. However, due to increased solar activity, Swift’s orbit has decayed faster than anticipated, and, absent intervention, re-entry is now anticipated in mid-2026. In September 2025, NASA contracted with Katalyst Space Technologies to attempt an unprecedented effort to capture Swift prior to re-entry, and boost its orbit to provide extended scientific observations. Here I’ll describe these efforts.
Host: Robert Stein