NASA shows off rocket for first-of-its-kind robotic rescue of its falling Swift telescope
A NASA telescope that hunts cosmic explosions is slowly falling toward Earth. NASA has shown off the rocket for a first of its kind robotic rescue that will grab the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and push it back toward a safe orbit. Launch is expected in the coming weeks.
NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a gamma ray burst telescope flying since 2004, has been dragged out of its original orbit by an unusually active Sun that heated and expanded the upper atmosphere. NASA models put the odds of an uncontrolled reentry at about 50 percent by mid 2026 and near 90 percent by year's end, and the agency has paused most of Swift's science to buy time. To save it, a Katalyst robotic spacecraft called LINK will launch on a Northrop Grumman $NOC Pegasus rocket dropped from a carrier plane, grip Swift with robotic arms, and fire ion thrusters to raise its altitude. NASA showed the rocket at its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Launch is expected in the coming weeks.