NASA abandons Swift telescope rescue after spacecraft fault
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NASA has abandoned its plan to boost the ageing Swift Observatory into a higher orbit, meaning the telescope is now expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up later this year. The agency confirmed the rescue was called off because Katalyst Space's LINK spacecraft, sent to dock with and tug the observatory, has continued to suffer an attitude control fault since late July that leaves it spinning and struggling to communicate, alongside partial loss of its thruster system; NASA and Katalyst had still sounded hopeful about the mission as recently as last month.
Katalyst had under a year to build LINK for the Swift Boost mission, which launched in early July, in what officials called a "high-risk, high-reward" first-of-its-kind attempt to save Swift, whose orbit has been decaying faster than expected amid rising solar activity. Although the boost is off, LINK will still attempt to rendezvous with the telescope so NASA and Katalyst can gather data to inform future satellite-servicing missions; Swift, launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts and since relied on for rapid response to cosmic events, was meant to gain roughly a decade of extra life from the mission, and NASA says it will now look at other ways to fill the gap.
- NASA has officially scrapped the Swift Observatory rescue mission
- LINK spacecraft's attitude control fault made the boost impossible
- Swift is now expected to burn up in the atmosphere this year
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NASA's Swift Observatory has been flying since 2004, watching gamma-ray bursts and other short-lived cosmic events that need a rapid response to catch. Its orbit has been dropping faster than expected because of increased solar activity, which pushes satellites down through drag on the upper atmosphere. That decay put Swift on course to burn up, prompting NASA to look at ways of saving it.
The rescue plan, called Swift Boost, involved a private company, Katalyst Space, building a small spacecraft named LINK to dock with Swift and push it into a higher, safer orbit. LINK was built in under a year and launched in early July, an ambitious timeline for what NASA described as a "high-risk, high-reward" first attempt at this kind of in-orbit rescue.
Soon after launch, LINK developed serious technical problems, including trouble controlling its orientation and communicating with ground teams, as well as partial loss of its thrusters. These faults are the reason NASA has now stepped back from using LINK to move Swift, leaving the telescope's re-entry and destruction expected later this year.
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Originally published by Engadget as “NASA calls off mission to rescue the falling Swift observatory”.