press conference<\/a> on June 17. \u201cIt\u2019s an observatory with unique capabilities for astrophysics \u2014 it can quickly pivot across the night sky to find things that go boom in the night.\u201d<\/p>\nWhy NASA Wants To Save Swift<\/p>\n
Swift has long been one of NASA\u2019s most versatile astrophysics tools. \u201cSwift was designed to study gamma-ray bursts, short-lived flashes of high-energy light that release more energy in just a few seconds than the Sun will in its entire lifetime,\u201d said Brad Cenko, Swift principal investigator at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Since launch, Swift has detected more than 2,000 GRBs, including events from near the edge of the visible universe. Its observations have also helped scientists understand where many of the heaviest elements, including gold and platinum, are forged.<\/p>\n
However, Swift\u2019s ability to react quickly when the universe produces sudden, powerful events makes it the observatory NASA turns to before its higher quality Webb and Hubble telescopes, which take days to re-point. Swift is NASA\u2019s first responder \u2014 and it doesn\u2019t want to lose it. <\/p>\n
Rapid Development<\/p>\n
Rather than allow the observatory to burn up in Earth\u2019s atmosphere, NASA turned Swift\u2019s predicament into a test of an emerging technology \u2014 robotic satellite servicing. \u201cWe decided we wanted to go save this one because of how special it is,\u201d said Domagal-Goldman. \u201cNo one thought it was going to be possible. No one thought we would get as far as we\u2019ve already gotten today.\u201d<\/p>\n
NASA awarded Katalyst Space Technologies, a U.S. startup based in Flagstaff, Arizona, a contract in September 2025 to attempt the reboost. The company\u2019s robotic servicing spacecraft, called LINK, is designed to rendezvous with Swift, capture it, and raise it to a safer orbit.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s remarkable is the speed of its development. Katalyst had less than a year to design, build, test, and launch LINK. \u201cOver the last nine months, we have gone from a clean sheet to a spacecraft that is currently integrated on a rocket on an airplane ready to go to Kwajalein Atoll for launch,\u201d said Kieran Wilson, LINK principal investigator at Katalyst Space.<\/p>\n
Race Against Time<\/p>\n
LINK will launch aboard Northrop Grumman\u2019s Pegasus XL, an air-launched rocket carried beneath the company\u2019s Stargazer L-1011 aircraft. The aircraft will fly to the Pacific, where Pegasus XL will be released in mid-air near Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands before igniting and carrying LINK toward Swift\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a race against time. \u201cOne of the very few requirements from the NASA team was: you must launch before it\u2019s too late,\u201d said Wilson. The urgency of Swift\u2019s declining orbit drove nearly every decision, with Swift is expected to remain above a critical altitude for several months, giving Katalyst a narrow window to complete the rescue. \u201cOur best estimate at the moment is that Swift will cross below 300 kilometers sometime around October,\u201d said Cenko.<\/p>\n
For now, Swift has suspended science operations and entered low-drag mode to slow its descent, but if the rescue succeeds, it could resume observations. \u201cIn the best-case scenario, Swift could return to science operations as early as the fall of this year,\u201d said Cenko.<\/p>\n
Swift, illustrated here, is a collaboration between NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Penn State in University Park, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems in Dulles, Virginia. Other partners include the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory in Italy, and the Italian Space Agency.<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center\/Chris Smith (KBRwyle)Challenges And Risks<\/p>\n
Katalyst\u2019s rapidly-made LINK spacecraft includes electric propulsion, multiple rendezvous sensors, robotic arms, reaction-control thrusters and complex software needed for proximity operations.<\/p>\n
After launch, it goes through a commissioning phase while in orbit, approaches Swift, captures it and then spends a few months raising its altitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll this is challenging and risky,\u201d said Wilson. \u201cThere are a lot of spacecraft that have had far longer development cycles with far more funding behind them that have failed for mundane reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
If successful, LINK could help demonstrate a future in which aging satellites are not automatically abandoned when their orbits degrade or components fail. Instead, spacecraft could be moved, repaired, upgraded or rescued in orbit.<\/p>\n
For Katalyst, the Swift reboost is also a chance to prove that a young commercial space company can respond quickly to urgent government needs. \u201cWe are an American technology company focused on dynamic space operations,\u201d said Robert Lamontagne, vice president of strategic partnerships at Katalyst Space. \u201cWe are here to celebrate America 250 by building a spacecraft in 250 days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, shown in this illustration, launched into Earth orbit in November 2004. NASA\u2019s Goddard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,234330,234334,234332,234331,234335,55574,234333,234336,88605,133,234337],"class_list":["post-546518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-katalyst-space","tag-kwajalein-atoll-launch","tag-link-spacecraft","tag-nasa-swift-observatory","tag-nasa-telescope-rescue","tag-neil-gehrels-swift-observatory","tag-pegasus-xl-rocket","tag-robotic-spacecraft","tag-satellite-servicing","tag-science","tag-swift-reboost-mission"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116787481008154577","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546518","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=546518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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