{"id":646332,"date":"2026-08-20T00:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T00:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/646332\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T00:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T00:06:14","slug":"rescue-mission-for-ageing-nasa-space-telescope-fails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/646332\/","title":{"rendered":"Rescue mission for ageing Nasa space telescope fails"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A mission to \u2060rescue Nasa\u2019s ageing Swift observatory in space was cancelled on Wednesday after the spacecraft that was launched to tug the satellite to a higher orbit suffered irredeemable technical issues in space, the rescue craft\u2019s owner, Katalyst Space, said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Katalyst\u2019s \u200cLink craft was launched in early July to approach the observatory, also known as Swift, some 347km (216 miles) in space, grapple onto it and then tug it to a higher orbit of roughly 600km (373 miles), extending its life by years.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But the Link craft began spinning uncontrollably soon after reaching space. Katalyst engineers \u2060spent weeks trying to regain control of the craft, uploading new positioning control software last week \u200cthat slowed but did not stop its errant spinning.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cFollowing continued monitoring and assessment of the Link spacecraft, Katalyst Space and Nasa together \u200chave concluded that due to ongoing attitude control issues, the mission will not include \u2060the capture and \u2060boost of Nasa\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory,\u201d Katalyst and Nasa said in a joint statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Link spacecraft built by Katalyst to tow Nasa\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory into a higher orbit awaits encapsulation aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL in Virginia in June. Photo: Nasa via Reuters\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2b7368ae-452e-448c-a96d-755b607fe5d8_b378ce99.jpg\" title=\"The Link spacecraft built by Katalyst to tow Nasa\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory into a higher orbit awaits encapsulation aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL in Virginia in June. Photo: Nasa via Reuters\"\/>The Link spacecraft built by Katalyst to tow Nasa\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory into a higher orbit awaits encapsulation aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL in Virginia in June. Photo: Nasa via Reuters<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The mission \u200cfailure means Nasa\u2019s prized US$500 million Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which has been studying gamma-ray bursts and other cosmic phenomena since \u200c2004, is \u200clikely to fall into Earth\u2019s atmosphere naturally and burn up later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mission to \u2060rescue Nasa\u2019s ageing Swift observatory in space was cancelled on Wednesday after the spacecraft that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,57797,273510,19,17,55570,234330,84288,273511,1024,55574,133,451,13448,232558,2867],"class_list":["post-646332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-gamma-ray-bursts","tag-ghonhee-lee","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-katalyst","tag-katalyst-space","tag-link","tag-mission-failure","tag-nasa","tag-neil-gehrels-swift-observatory","tag-science","tag-space","tag-swift","tag-swift-observatory","tag-wednesday"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646332","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=646332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}