UPDATE: NASA's Swift Space 'Scope Now Expected To Burn In -- Over The Pacific Ocean -- In Early October...

We were cautiously optimistic, for the private-sector near-Boulder, Colorado engineering and science teams -- but launching in under one elapsed year, here -- on a complicated zero-G grapple maneuver. . . proved to be too tall an order. So Swift will soon be end-of-mission.

It was a nice try, but space is. . . hard. Here's all that, from the NASA team's blog:

. . .NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has resumed use of its third science instrument, the Burst Alert Telescope, after the mission returned to data collection in August. Flight controllers have also allowed the spacecraft to resume automatically repointing its other telescopes to examine new high-energy flashes in the sky.

The return to normal operations follows the scaling back of a commercial mission that would have boosted Swift to a higher altitude.

[It] has [consequently] caused Swift to resume its rapid sinking. It is now located around 200 miles (325 kilometers) above Earth. Below 185 miles (300 kilometers), spacecraft operations become more difficult and science observations will likely cease.

The team estimates Swift will reach this threshold sometime in early to mid-October. . . .

Now you know -- onward, after a glorious EU vacation over the last four weeks. . . I'll likely put a few of my better shots into the masthead in the coming weeks -- or. . . maybe. . . now. Smile.

नमस्ते