{"id":530729,"date":"2026-06-12T00:39:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/530729\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T00:39:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:39:14","slug":"katalyst-mission-to-boost-swift-spacecrafts-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/530729\/","title":{"rendered":"Katalyst mission to boost Swift spacecraft\u2019s orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/NASA-1.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/NASA-1.jpg\" class=\"alignright lazyload\" width=\"300px\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 700px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 700\/500;\"\/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>NASA has outlined plans for a robotic servicing attempt intended to raise the orbit of the agency\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, as the 21-year-old spacecraft\u2019s low Earth orbit decays amid increased solar activity.<\/p>\n<p>According to NASA, Katalyst Space\u2019s servicing spacecraft, called LINK, is scheduled to launch later this month on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The mission will attempt to rendezvous with Swift and boost it to a higher altitude.<\/p>\n<p>Swift, launched in 2004, is part of NASA\u2019s high-energy astrophysics fleet and is used to detect and rapidly report transient events such as gamma-ray bursts. NASA said the observatory acts as a \u201cdispatcher\u201d, providing information to enable follow-up observations by other missions.<\/p>\n<p>NASA said Swift\u2019s orbit has been \u201crapidly\u201d decaying and that, rather than allowing the observatory to re-enter Earth\u2019s atmosphere at end of life, the agency is using the opportunity to advance US spacecraft servicing technology.<\/p>\n<p>In September 2025, NASA said it awarded Katalyst a contract to mount a robotic servicing mission for Swift in less than a year. The planned orbital-boost attempt is intended to extend Swift\u2019s operational lifespan while demonstrating on-orbit servicing capability that NASA says will be important for future space exploration.<\/p>\n<p>More information is available at <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/swift\/swift-boost-mission\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><strong>https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/swift\/swift-boost-mission\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA has outlined plans for a robotic servicing attempt intended to raise the orbit of the agency\u2019s Neil&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,55570,1024,133,228671],"class_list":["post-530729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-katalyst","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-spacecrafts"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116734352842826954","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}