A commercial spacecraft just passed its final tests for the most unusual rescue NASA has ever attempted, and if it works it will quietly rewrite what happens to aging satellites in an increasingly hostile orbit

A commercial spacecraft just passed its final tests for the most unusual rescue NASA has ever attempted, and if it works it will quietly rewrite what happens to aging satellites in an increasingly hostile orbit

A commercial spacecraft built to rescue NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has cleared environmental testing and is now heading toward a June launch, in what would be the first commercial rescue of a NASA science satellite that was never designed to be serviced. The mission is also a template, one that could keep aging observatories alive in an increasingly hostile orbital environment. The mission matters less for Swift alone than for what it…