NASA's $500 million Neil Gehrels Swift space observatory was launched in 2004 . But it's now "at risk of falling back through the atmosphere and burning up without intervention," reports Spaceflight Now . Fortunately, a mission to prevent that "just passed a notable prelaunch testing milestone." On Friday, NASA announced that the Link spacecraft, manufactured by Katalyst Space Technologies to intervene before Swift's fate is sealed, completed its slate of environmental testing at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland... "Swift will likely re-enter the atmosphere sometime later this year if we don't attempt to lift it to a higher altitude, [said John Van Eepoel, Swift's mission director at NASA Goddard, in a NASA press release ].…