NASA’s Neal Gehrels Swift Observatory has spent more than two decades studying gamma-ray bursts and may soon get an unprecedented orbital escape. (Image: Swift) NASA is preparing for an unprecedented mission to save one of its most successful space telescopes from falling out of orbit and burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.

The agency’s Neal Gehrels Swift Observatory, launched in 2004 to study powerful cosmic bursts known as gamma-ray bursts, is slowly losing altitude due to increasing atmospheric drag. Without intervention, scientists estimate that the spacecraft could re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and be destroyed before the end of 2026.

Rather than allow that to happen, NASA decided to try something that had never been done before: send a commercial spacecraft to rendezvous with the old observatory, capture it, and send it into higher orbit.