Skip to main content

How NASA is fixing the gamma-ray burst Swift Observatory

NASA has a plan to fix the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a space-based telescope for investigating gamma-ray bursts which suffered a mechanical issue in January and has been in safe mode since then.

Last month, the observatory was put into safe mode and science operations were suspended due to a failure of one of the spacecraft’s reaction wheels. The six reaction wheels control the spacecraft’s rotation, which allows the telescope to maintain its position accurately and continue pointing in the right direction. This is important for the telescope to be able to record data accurately. With the failure of the wheel, the observatory was placed into safe mode so that the issue could be further investigated.

An artist's rendering of the Swift spacecraft with a gamma-ray burst going off in the background.
An artist’s rendering of the Swift spacecraft with a gamma-ray burst going off in the background. Spectrum and NASA E/PO, Sonoma State University, Aurore Simonnet

In an update shared earlier this week, NASA confirmed that there had indeed been a failure in one reaction wheel, which seemed to stem from a mechanical issue. Although the team could have attempted to recover the failed wheel, they decided not to as the observatory can work using just five wheels. For now, they intend to perform testing using five wheels and reassess the situation in several weeks’ time.

Recommended Videos

“Swift can fully carry out its science mission with five wheels,” NASA wrote. “After careful analysis, the team has determined that the five-wheel configuration will minimally impact the movements necessary for Swift to make science observations. The team expects the change will slightly delay the spacecraft’s initial response time when responding to onboard gamma-ray burst triggers, but this will not impact Swift’s ability to make these observations and meet its original operational requirements.”

The next step is for the team to perform tests on configuring the spacecraft with five wheels. Once they have found a configuration they are happy with, they can upload the instructions to the spacecraft next week. After that, according to NASA, the observatory should get up and running once and start collecting science data again: “Once the new configuration is uploaded to the spacecraft and verified in orbit, the team will begin a phased return to science operations.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
NASA’s axed moon rover could be resurrected by Intuitive Machines
An illustration of NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) on the lunar surface.

Lunar scientists were shocked and dismayed last month when NASA announced that it was canceling work on its moon rover, VIPER. The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover was intended to search the moon's south pole for evidence of water there, but NASA said that it had to ax the project due to increasing costs.

This week, an open letter to Congress called the cancellation of the mission "unprecedented and indefensible," and questioned NASA's assertion that the cancellation of the mission would not affect plans to send humans to the moon. Scientists argued that the mission was fundamental to understanding the presence of water on the moon, which is a key resource for human exploration, as well as an issue of scientific interest.

Read more
Stuck Starliner is causing NASA to delay other ISS missions
SpaceX Crew-9 during training.

NASA has announced that it will delay the targeted launch date of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) while it continues to work on resolving the situation with the troubled Starliner spacecraft.

The Starliner mission was only supposed to last about 10 days, but has been docked at the ISS since early June. An issue with some of the spacecraft's thrusters has prompted NASA engineers to carry out investigations to determine if the vehicle is safe to fly home with its two crew members on board.

Read more
How NASA is using AI on the Perseverance rover to study Mars rocks
akdjf alkjdhf lk

Space engineers have been using AI in rovers for some time now -- hence why today's Mars explorers are able to pick a safe landing site and to drive around a region autonomously. But something they haven't been able to do before now is to do science themselves, as most of that work is done by scientists on Earth who analyze data and point the rover toward targets they want to investigate.

Now, though, NASA's Perseverance rover is taking the first steps toward autonomous science investigation on Mars. The rover has been testing out an AI capability for the last three years, which allows it to search for and identify particular minerals in Mars rocks. The system works using the rover's PIXL instrument (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry), a spectrometer that uses light to analyze what rocks are made of. The software, called adaptive sampling, looks though PIXL's data and identifies minerals to be studied in more detail.

Read more