NASA's 22-year-old telescope falls after failed transfer and rescue mission NASA's Fast Satellite Telescope, which has spent two decades studying the most powerful bursts of energy known in the universe, derailed as expected on Wednesday and burned up in Earth's atmosphere over Indonesia. Reuters wrote: The fiery death of the Nile Swift Observatory, weighing about 3,200 pounds (1,452 kilograms), came less than three months after a rescue spacecraft failed to lift the satellite into a higher orbit and prolong its life. The US Space Force confirmed that the satellite hit the upper atmosphere at about 22 times the speed of sound over Indonesia's North Sumatra province, about 322 kilometers (200 miles) north of the equator.

NASA's 22-year-old telescope falls after failed transfer and rescue mission NASA's Fast Satellite Telescope, which has spent two decades studying the most powerful bursts of energy known in the universe, derailed as expected on Wednesday and burned up in Earth's atmosphere over Indonesia. Reuters wrote: The fiery death of the Nile Swift Observatory, weighing about 3,200 pounds (1,452 kilograms), came less than three months after a rescue spacecraft failed to lift the satellite into a higher orbit and prolong its life. The US Space Force confirmed that the satellite hit the upper atmosphere at about 22 times the speed of sound over Indonesia's North Sumatra province, about 322 kilometers (200 miles) north of the equator.