NASA Highlights Lessons Learned From Swift Boost Mission

What happened

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab Swift, which launched in November 2004, was designed to study gamma-ray bursts , the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. “From the beginning, this was a high-risk, high-reward mission,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA is a space exploration and public company founded in 1958.

NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory orbits above Earth in this artist’s concept. If they don’t have propulsion systems, this drag gradually reduces their altitudes.

A period of increased solar activity magnified this effect on Swift . In September 2025, NASA contracted Katalyst, based in Flagstaff, Arizona, to attempt the mission.