Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory

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Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, previously called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, was a NASA three-instrument 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. It was launched on 20 November 2004, aboard a Delta II launch vehicle. 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 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 launched as MIDEX-3, following FUSE (MIDEX-0), IMAGE (MIDEX-1) and WMAP (MIDEX-2). An Announcement...

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