Swift Is Gone. Now NASA Is Asking Who Can Save Hubble.

NASA’s Swift telescope fell back to Earth on November 4. A private rescue ship had tried and failed to lift it. Six days before Swift fell, NASA asked industry a harder question: can anyone save the much larger Hubble Space Telescope before the same thing happens to it?

What happened to Swift

Swift launched in November 2004 to catch gamma-ray bursts, which are the brightest explosions in the universe. It was built for a two-year mission and worked for almost 22 years.

Then the Sun got busier. Strong solar activity swells Earth’s upper air, and that adds drag to satellites. A satellite without engines is like a bicycle coasting uphill: it only slows down. NASA says its team saw in January 2025 that Swift would come down in the summer of 2026.

NASA hired Katalyst Space in September 2025 to build a robotic servicer called LINK in about a year. The AP reported the contract at $30 million. Here is how it went, based on NASA’s account:

• July 2026: LINK launched. It then had patchy communications and trouble controlling its direction.
• August 2026: After round-the-clock work, NASA and Katalyst scaled the mission back. LINK would no longer grab or lift Swift.
• September 3 and 25: NASA ended its role in the LINK mission. LINK re-entered the atmosphere.
• October 20: Swift dropped to 171 miles (275 kilometers), went into safe mode, and its operators ended its operations.
• November 4: The U.S. Space Force confirmed that Swift re-entered at 7:39 a.m. EST over the North Sumatra region of Indonesia. NASA expected most of it to burn up, and said some parts may have survived.

LINK did get close. It came within roughly 12 to 15 kilometers of Swift and took a picture. NASA says the effort still taught it how to manage a fast, risky servicing mission.

The Hubble question

On October 29, NASA sent out a Request for Information, or RFI. An RFI is not a contract. It asks companies what they could do. NASA wants to hear about three options:

1. Boost Hubble to a higher orbit, at least 600 kilometers.
2. Service Hubble to improve it or make it last longer.
3. Bring it down safely, through a controlled re-entry or other disposal.

Responses are due by 3 p.m. EST on Monday, November 30. Hubble has no engine of its own, so any boost must come from a visiting spacecraft. NASA says a mission would need to happen by 2032.

How much time does Hubble have?

NASA’s text says analysis points to re-entry in 2033 to 2034. The RFI on SAM.gov gives odds: a lifetime analysis from July 2026 found a 10% chance of re-entry by September 2032 and a 50% chance by December 2033.

These dates differ from some earlier reports. In February, The Register wrote that the end could come as early as 2028. We use NASA’s July 2026 analysis because it is the newest official figure. The exact date depends on future solar activity, which cannot be predicted well.

What this means

Swift shows how fast a rescue can go wrong when it is built in a hurry. NASA said the whole decision hung on one date, when Swift would pass the point of no return. Hubble’s clock is slower. Even the 10% mark is nearly six years away, so a rescue could be designed more carefully.

Still, an RFI is only the start. NASA has not picked a company or approved a mission, and the notice itself says it is for information and planning. NASA’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, said Hubble “still has important science ahead of it”. Whether that turns into a funded mission is not yet known.

What we could not confirm

• NASA’s pages do not give the cost of the LINK mission. The $30 million figure comes from the AP.
• We could not confirm whether any piece of Swift reached the ground.
• Hubble’s re-entry date is a forecast with wide error bars.

What to watch next: how many companies answer by November 30, and whether NASA turns the answers into a funded plan.