NASA Launches Spacecraft to Recover Sinking Telescope

A critical mission to save NASA's Swift Observatory telescope, launched in 2004, is now underway. A specialized three-armed spacecraft, named Link, was successfully rocketed into orbit from the Marshall Islands on Friday, tasked with capturing the aging satellite.

The Swift telescope, weighing 1.6 tons, orbits about 224 miles above Earth and has been instrumental in tracking major cosmic events like gamma-ray bursts and exploding stars. However, recent solar storms have accelerated its orbital decay, causing it to sink faster than anticipated and putting it at risk of burning up in the atmosphere.

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This is a high-risk, high-reward mission. The biggest danger was always we don't launch anything and we let Swift burn up in the atmosphere. So we were always trying to avoid that risk, and our team has done that.

Katalyst Space Technologies, contracted by NASA for $30 million, developed the Link spacecraft. Ghonhee Lee, CEO of Katalyst, described the mission as "high-risk, high-reward," emphasizing the primary goal of preventing Swift's loss. The Link spacecraft, launched by a Pegasus rocket deployed from an airplane, must capture Swift within a month and then use its thrusters to slowly raise the telescope's altitude by 150 miles without causing damage.

NASA warned that Swift would become unrecoverable by autumn, with a predicted plunge in October if no intervention occurred. Despite facing weather and technical delays, Katalyst organized the complex mission in just nine months. Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA's astrophysics division, expressed gratitude for the opportunity to attempt the rescue, calling it a mission with "a lot of firsts stacked on top of each other."

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This is a lot of firsts stacked on top of each other. I'm just deeply thankful that we're even giving this a go.