NASA mission to save its sinking space telescope fails soon after launch

A high-stakes mission to rescue NASA's aging Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has ended in failure, dooming the space telescope to a fiery re-entry into Earth's atmosphere later this year. The joint venture between NASA and aerospace startup Katalyst Space Technologies aimed to use a spacecraft named Link to nudge the observatory back into a higher, more stable orbit.

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While the mission will not have the ending we originally intended, NASA and Katalyst are assessing what milestones remain ahead. We will continue working to extract technical and operational value from the spacecraft.

The mission, launched on July 3, encountered critical problems controlling the Link spacecraft. Katalyst announced that Link would not attempt to capture the observatory due to these control issues. While the mission did not achieve its intended outcome, NASA and Katalyst stated they would continue to assess the project for technical and operational value. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman acknowledged the setback but emphasized the mission's worth in advancing satellite servicing capabilities for the future.

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This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting. The team moved with extraordinary speed to give Swift a chance to carry out more science while advancing capabilities America will need for satellite servicing in the future.

Swift, launched in 2004 to study powerful cosmic events like gamma-ray bursts and exploding stars, began losing altitude faster than expected due to solar activity. NASA invested $30 million in the rescue attempt. Despite the failure, mission leaders highlighted the rapid development and the valuable lessons learned. Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division, noted that while more science from Swift was hoped for, the mission provided significant takeaways and advanced capabilities. Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee echoed this sentiment, calling the mission ambitious and expressing pride in the milestones achieved despite the expedited timeline.

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We knew this was a high-risk, high-reward mission – a first-of-its-kind attempt, developed on an unprecedented timeline driven by the Sun’s activity. We were all hoping for more science from Swift. But we knew the takeaways from this mission would be worthwhile either way, and we have gained so much through the series of accomplishments up to this point.