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Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory - Wikipedia
Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory
Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, previously called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, is a NASA three-telescope space observatory for studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and monitoring the afterglow in X-ray and UV/visible light at the location of a burst.1 It was launched on 20 November 2004, aboard a Delta II launch vehicle.[^4] Headed by principal investigator Neil Gehrels until his death in February 2017, the mission was developed in a joint partnership between Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and an international consortium from the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy.
The burst detection rate is 100 per year, with a sensitivity ~3 times greater than the BATSE detector aboard the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The Swift mission was launched with a nominal on-orbit lifetime of two years. Swift is a NASA MIDEX (medium-class Explorer) mission, operated by Pennsylvania State University. It was the third to be launched, following IMAGE and WMAP.1
While originally designed for the study of gamma-ray bursts, Swift now functions as a general-purpose multi-wavelength observatory, particularly for the rapid follow-up and characterization of astrophysical transients of all types. As of 2020, Swift received 5.5 Target of Opportunity observing proposals per day, and observes ~70 targets per day, on average.2
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
“Display: SWIFT (Explorer 84) 2004-047A”. NASA. 28 October 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. ↩ ↩2
“Swift Mission Operations Center”. PSU. 27 December 2021. Retrieved 27 December 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. ↩
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