The Swift mission was proposed to the 1998 medium Explorers announcement of opportunity; it was selected for Phase A study in January 1999 and for flight in October 1999. Launched in 2004, the Swift satellite is an astronomical robot that autonomously determines the position of a gamma-ray burst and slews to that position for afterglow observations. It continues to operate successfully to this day, relying on three instruments: a wide-field gamma-ray camera, a narrow-field optical telescope, and an X-ray telescope. The gamma-ray camera was developed at Goddard Space Flight Center while the telescopes were built largely in Europe with management at Penn State, with operations at Penn State and the data center at Goddard. Challenges with the hardware build and complex scientific management among a large international team will be discussed, with an emphasis on how a close partnership among the science, management, and engineering teams was a key aspect of the project's success. The mission has since returned major discoveries about gamma-ray bursts and other astronomical transients, and it has been highly ranked in the past three Senior Reviews.

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