NASA Scraps Rescue Mission, Retiring a 22-Year-Old Space Telescope With No Replacement

NASA cancelled the Swift Boost mission on August 19, 2026, after Katalyst Space's LINK spacecraft lost its steering in late July. The $500 million Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a space telescope that has tracked powerful cosmic explosions since 2004, will fall back to Earth and burn up this year. No similar telescope currently exists to take its place.