NASA's Swift Observatory resumes science operations following reaction wheel failure

NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has resumed its science mission to study the high-energy universe following a failure of a reaction wheel that caused the spacecraft to enter safe mode on January 18, 2022, subsequently suspending pointed science observations.

Swift has a total of six reaction wheels onboard. On Feb. 4, the mission team confirmed that failure of one of the spacecraft's reaction wheels caused the spacecraft to enter safe mode.

However, the spacecraft returned to science operations using the five operational reaction wheels on Thursday, February 17, 2022. The mission team is monitoring the observatory's performance.

According to NASA, the spacecraft and its three instruments are healthy and operating as expected.

The Swift Observatory’s operations team announced the return to science operations on Feb. 17. This comes after the spacecraft entered safe mode on Jan. 18, when one of the six reaction wheels failed. It is now operating on five. More: https://t.co/EMNb1u0rEo pic.twitter.com/YC5Dka5Rtc

— NASA Universe (@NASAUniverse) February 18, 2022

Dedicated to studying the gamma-ray burst/black hole connection, the Swift mission is part of NASA's medium explorer (MIDEX) program and was launched into a low-Earth orbit on a Delta 7320 rocket on November 20, 2004. This is the first time a reaction wheel has experienced a failure in Swift's 17 years of operations.