NASA is advancing a long mission to rescue the Swift space telescope, launched 22 years ago to detect the most powerful explosions in the universe.
The objective is to prevent its uncontrolled re-entry to Earth at the end of 2026 and, to do so, it uses the LINK robotic ship, designed by the American company Katalyst and launched on July 3.
The spacecraft is on its way to the telescope, and although NASA has not yet determined when the encounter will occur, the process could take weeks.
LINK, which was launched from the Marshall Islands aboard a Pegasus XL rocket, will seek to capture the Swift with its three robotic arms and begin raising its orbit, a maneuver that could also last for months.
“Given that Swift’s orbit is rapidly decaying, we are in a race against time, but by taking advantage of commercial technologies that are already in development we are facing this challenge,” Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division, told EFE.
He added that it is more economical to try to raise the orbit than to replace Swift’s capabilities with a new mission.
On the day of takeoff, the ship reached orbit without problems and the technicians on the ground managed to communicate with it. After these maneuvers the most difficult part began.
For several weeks, controllers have activated and tested all of their systems. LINK will not attempt to approach the Swift until the ship is functioning correctly, since, at the enormous speed at which both devices travel, any failure could jeopardize the rescue.
When it is ready, LINK will gradually approach the Swift. You will take photographs to determine where to hold it, because the telescope was not designed to be captured: it has no handles or anchor points.
NASA estimates that this approach and capture will make up “a slow and careful process” that can last about a month.
Once the telescope is secured, the spacecraft will gradually begin to propel it into a higher orbit and, over several months, will try to return it close to the height at which it was launched.
Then he will release it and NASA will turn on Swift’s instruments again, something that will take “a month or more” until the observatory regains its full working capacity.
If the operation goes well, it will be the first time that a robot from a private company captures an unmanned US Government satellite that was not designed to receive repairs in space, according to NASA.
That is the biggest challenge: capturing an object that was never prepared for it, the agency says.
Telescope at risk
Valued at about US$500 million, Swift has been, since 2004, one of the main tools for studying the cosmos. It orbits the Earth in search of the most powerful explosions in the universe, the so-called gamma ray bursts.
It has no engine, so it cannot correct its course on its own. Although at hundreds of kilometers high the atmosphere is extremely thin, the little air that remains generates resistance and gradually slows it down, causing it to lose height.
Without intervention, the telescope would end up entering the Earth’s atmosphere and be destroyed at the end of 2026.
The US agency commissioned Katalyst to rescue it in 2025 and gave it just one year to build, test and launch the ship, in addition to completing the mission.
Both NASA and the company present this operation as a test of future services aimed at repairing and prolonging the useful life of satellites without having to bring them back to Earth.
“This bold mission will also demonstrate our ability to go from concept to execution in less than a year,” Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Scientific Mission Directorate, told EFE.