Nasa’s mission to save a sinking space telescope

A NASA space telescope is falling out of the sky, and to save it the agency skipped its own contractors and handed the job to a four-year-old startup that had never flown a spacecraft — nine months and $30 million after its own $2 billion rescue program collapsed.

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has spent 21 years as astronomy's first responder, swinging toward exploding stars faster than any other telescope. Now it is falling toward Earth. And on July 3, a refrigerator-sized robot built by a four-year-old company launched on a daring attempt to catch it in orbit and shove it back up. If it works, it won't just save one telescope: it will prove out the capability that could one day rescue Hubble. It is…

Nasa’s mission to save a sinking space telescope

Nasa has launched a spacecraft to catch a falling telescope, an unprecedented mission that could pave the way for similar future rescues. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory telescope, known simply as Swift and launched in 2004, detects some of the most powerful explosions in the Universe. Its name comes from its ability to point at a new target in the solar system in a matter of minutes, compared to other space telescopes such as Hubble, which c…