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Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, previously called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, is 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 (GSFC) 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 the third to be launched, following IMAGE and WMAP. Swift was designed to study gamma-ray bursts, but later came into use as a general-purpose multi-wavelength observatory, particularly for the rapid follow-up and characterization of astrophysical transients of all types. In 2020 Swift received 5.5 Target of Opportunity observing proposals per day, and observed about 70 targets per day, on average. In 2026 Swift's orbit had been lowering, mostly in the previous two years, because an increase in solar activity had expanded the Earth's atmosphere enough to slow Swift due to atmospheric drag. A mission to raise Swift to a higher orbit to prevent it from falling to earth was launched on 3 July 2026.