NASA, Katalyst call off SWIFT rescue mission over issues with rescue craft in space
- On Wednesday, NASA called off the mission to rescue the sinking Swift Observatory, dooming the telescope to a fiery atmospheric reentry later this year.
- Katalyst Space Technologies' Link spacecraft entered an uncontrollable spin weeks after its July launch, with persistent pointing and positioning issues eventually forcing the mission's cancellation.
- NASA paid $30 million to Katalyst to raise the telescope to a safer orbit; Swift has tracked universe explosions for more than 20 years before this setback.
- Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee said "we have already learned a tremendous amount," and the company will keep Link in orbit near Swift to demonstrate future rescue capabilities.
- NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called the mission "worth attempting" despite the cancellation, while the 36-year-old Hubble Space Telescope also faces orbital decay from solar outbursts.
145 Articles
145 Articles
Ars Technica
technewstube.comNASA calls off mission to rescue Swift gamma-ray observatory
Without a rescue, NASA's Swift Observatory is expected to reenter the atmosphere later this year.
Rescue mission for Swift space telescope fails
A complicated mission to save a Nasa satellite from burning up in the atmosphere has failed, the US space agency said Wednesday, as the rescue spacecraft could not be controlled. 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. The unprecedented US$30 million dollar mission attempted to send a robot to grab the telescope and…
NASA cancelled on Wednesday the rescue of the Swift telescope, which was put into orbit twenty-two years ago and is expected to return to Earth in an uncontrolled manner at the end of this year, more than a month after the launch of a spacecraft to try to stop its fall.“Because of a persistent problem with the altitude control of a commercial spacecraft (...) the LINK spacecraft will not capture or boost an agency satellite at higher altitude to…
NASA Opts Out of Swift Observatory Rescue Mission, Will Let It Burn on Reentry
NASA announced on Aug. 16 that it would forgo an attempt to rescue one of its observatories from falling out of orbit. After more than 20 years of service studying gamma-ray bursts and other cosmic events, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory began experiencing a rapidly decaying orbit due to what NASA called “increased solar activity.” Enter, LINK: a spacecraft built by Katalyst Space in less than a year, after being awarded a NASA contract in …
A space robot was to join the aging telescope, grabbing it and then re-establishing its orbit in order to extend its scientific mission. In the absence of a successful intervention, Swift will continue its slow descent before disintegration into the Earth's atmosphere.
Rescue mission for ageing Nasa space telescope fails
A mission to rescue Nasa’s ageing Swift observatory in space was cancelled on Wednesday after the spacecraft that was launched to tug the satellite to a higher orbit suffered irredeemable technical issues in space, the rescue craft’s owner, Katalyst Space, said. Katalyst’s Link craft was launched in early July to approach the observatory, also known as Swift, some 347km (216 miles) in space, grapple onto it and then tug it to a higher orbit of…
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