{"id":392114,"date":"2025-11-20T11:39:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/392114\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T11:39:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:39:21","slug":"katalyst-selects-pegasus-to-launch-swift-reboost-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/392114\/","title":{"rendered":"Katalyst selects Pegasus to launch Swift reboost mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

BREMEN, Germany \u2014 A startup with a NASA contract to raise the decaying orbit of an astronomy satellite has selected the rarely used Pegasus rocket for the mission.<\/p>\n

Katalyst Space Technologies announced Nov. 19 that it will launch a spacecraft it is developing to reboost NASA\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL. The launch is expected no later than mid-2026 to keep Swift from reentering.<\/p>\n

NASA awarded a $30 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase 3 contract to Katalyst in September<\/a> for a mission to reboost Swift, aimed at keeping the 21-year-old gamma-ray observatory in operation and demonstrating satellite-servicing technologies. The contract covers the full cost of the mission, including launch, with Katalyst responsible for securing a launch vehicle.<\/p>\n

Katalyst chose Pegasus, a rocket flown only infrequently today, for several reasons, including Swift\u2019s unusual orbit. The observatory flies at an inclination of about 21 degrees to avoid the South Atlantic Anomaly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means it takes a huge amount of propellant for a rocket launched from the Cape or Vandenberg just to reach the right orbital plane for this mission,\u201d said Kieran Wilson, vice president of technology at Katalyst, in an interview. That rules out most small launch vehicles, which lack the delta-V needed to reach the orbit from existing spaceports, as well as rideshare options.<\/p>\n

Schedule is another factor: Katalyst\u2019s Link spacecraft must launch by mid-2026 to reach Swift before its orbit decays too far. \u201cSo we need a mature launch vehicle that has the reliability and schedule capability for this mission,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n

Cost was the third factor. \u201cThis is a fixed-price contract with NASA that had to fit within the cost cap for the mission,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Neither Katalyst nor Northrop Grumman disclosed the launch price, but they said it was less expensive than a dedicated Falcon 9, which could also provide the required delta-V. \u201cEven at full price Pegasus would be underneath that,\u201d said Kurt Eberly, director of space launch at Northrop Grumman. \u201cWe gave them a really good price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northrop has one Pegasus XL rocket in storage that will be used for the mission, Eberly said. The launch will take place from the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific, which has hosted several past Pegasus missions. The site\u2019s proximity to the Equator provides favorable access to Swift\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

Pegasus has launched only three times in the last decade, most recently on the Tactically Responsive Launch-2 mission in June 2021<\/a>. Despite the long gap, Eberly said both Pegasus and its L-1011 carrier aircraft are ready.<\/p>\n

He noted that Northrop\u2019s L-1011, called Stargazer, may be the last of its type still flying. \u201cIronically, that has allowed us to purchase a bunch of spare parts at a very, very favorable pricing,\u201d he said. While Stargazer has not supported a Pegasus launch in more than four years, it flies regularly for undisclosed customers for flight-testing missiles or other concepts.<\/p>\n

Eberly said Northrop has maintained Pegasus expertise through other programs, including missile defense work. \u201cWe\u2019ve been able to bring back a few of the old timers who are super excited to come back and work on this Pegasus mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LINKA series of illustrations of how Katalyst Space\u2019s Link spacecraft (left) would attach to NASA\u2019s Swift satellite and boost its orbit. Credit: Katalyst Space<\/p>\n

Wilson said development of the Link spacecraft remains on schedule, with qualification of the structure and key components underway. Katalyst had already been working on a satellite-servicing demonstration mission in 2026 to test technologies for future geostationary orbit servicing missions when NASA offered the Swift reboost opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ended up pivoting toward this full operational capability mission that allows us to actually use it for a useful end user,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is how this came about and why we can meet this schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eberly said that while no additional Pegasus XL rockets are in storage, Northrop would consider producing new ones if there is demand. \u201cThe tooling, the motor production, is still available at our production systems group,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019d certainly be willing to offer that to other customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BREMEN, Germany \u2014 A startup with a NASA contract to raise the decaying orbit of an astronomy satellite…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":392115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[186425,916,18436,19792,159,16988,39567,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-392114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-katalyst-space-technologies","9":"tag-nasa","10":"tag-northrop-grumman","11":"tag-pegasus","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-sn","14":"tag-swift","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115581837319288437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}