{"id":646660,"date":"2026-08-20T04:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T04:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/646660\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T04:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T04:40:11","slug":"nasa-satellite-rescue-mission-fails-swift-telescope-set-to-fall-to-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/646660\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA satellite rescue mission fails, swift telescope set to fall to earth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A complicated mission to save a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/tag\/nasa\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NASA<\/a>\u00a0satellite from burning up in the atmosphere has failed, the US space agency said Wednesday, as the rescue spacecraft could not be controlled.<\/p>\n<p>The Swift space telescope, which studies the most powerful explosions in the universe, will now likely plunge back to earth and disintegrate along the way later this year.<\/p>\n<p>The unprecedented $30 million dollar mission attempted to send a robot to grab the telescope and move it farther into orbit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting,&#8221;\u00a0NASA\u00a0Administrator Jared Isaacman said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"a-read-more\">Read more<a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/france\/20260818-sophie-adenot-set-to-become-first-french-female-astronaut-to-venture-outside-iss\" target=\"_self\" class=\"a-read-more__link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sophie Adenot becomes France&#8217;s first female astronaut to walk in space<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Planners had hoped the mission would pave the way for giving other satellites a second life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The team moved with extraordinary speed to give Swift a chance to carry out more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/tag\/science\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"gtm-add-suggested-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">science<\/a> while advancing capabilities <a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/tag\/usa\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">America <\/a>will need for satellite servicing in the future,&#8221; Isaacman added.<\/p>\n<p>Developed by American startup Katalyst, the unmanned spacecraft was launched on July 3 by a small rocket named Pegasus, which was itself launched from an airplane.<\/p>\n<p>However, on July 28 the company said the spacecraft had been in an out-of-control spin for 72 hours with multiple problems including a loss of communications.<\/p>\n<p>In announcing the mission failure on Wednesday, Katalyst cited &#8220;ongoing attitude control issues&#8221; as the reason it and\u00a0NASA\u00a0were calling it off.<\/p>\n<p>NASA\u00a0said that the spacecraft would still attempt to reach the Swift telescope with the hope of giving scientists and engineers lessons for similar future missions.<\/p>\n<p>The agency launched Swift in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts.<\/p>\n<p>(FRANCE 24 with AFP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A complicated mission to save a\u00a0NASA\u00a0satellite from burning up in the atmosphere has failed, the US space agency&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[15852,18,19,17,1024,133,451,1543],"class_list":["post-646660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-americas","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-space","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117125999804216335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646660","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=646660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}