CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA is racing to save an old telescope from falling back to Earth with a daring rescue mission.
The $30 million rescue operation begins this week with the planned launch of a robotic rescuer.
NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the Swift Observatory to a higher orbit where it can continue to hunt for some of the universe’s biggest explosions. A three-winged spacecraft built by Katalyst will follow Swift once it lifts off from an atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands on a Pegasus rocket launched from the plane. The rise could happen as early as Tuesday.
Scanning the cosmos since its launch in 2004, Swift has been sinking faster and faster due to intense recent solar activity.
It must reach a higher, more stable orbit as soon as possible to survive.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope — also at risk — could be next.
Like Swift, Hubble is losing altitude as the sun explodes in one flare after another. Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee said his company’s next-generation robot, still in development, could save the day for the much larger Hubble in a few years.
Only China has attempted a mission like the upcoming one, successfully lifting a satellite into a higher graveyard orbit four years ago.
“This is the first American space robot to go up and do something like this,” Lee told The Associated Press. “NASA has all these big old observatories … they could all benefit from a service like this. So what we’re proving with this mission is that this is a new play in the playbook that’s available.”
Katalyst’s autonomous spacecraft, called Link, will take about a month to rendezvous with Swift and capture it, and several more months to raise its orbit from its current 224 miles (360 kilometers) to 373 miles (600 kilometers).
The 1.6-ton (1.4 metric tons) gamma-ray observatory must be above 185 miles (300 kilometers) for the rescue to work. It is expected to reach that point of no return in October, according to the latest estimates.
About the size of a small kitchen refrigerator with a solar wingspan of 40 feet (12 meters), Link has three wings with a span of just over 3 feet (1 meter). Each arm has two finger-like grippers that resemble the hands of a Lego mini figure.
If all goes well, Swift could be back in business by September, according to Lee.
Worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the Swift was never designed to be repaired, let alone handled – human or otherwise. That’s what makes it so challenging, according to company officials, who stress that there’s no guarantee it will work.
NASA signed a contract with Katalyst last September with only two requirements: It must be a rush job, but please don’t make things worse. Nine months later, the company is ready to make some noise.
“I have to be honest. No one thought it would be possible. No one thought we would get as far as we have today,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA’s director of astrophysics.
NASA has bought a little more time for Swift, turning off all science instruments to slow its descent. Observations were discontinued in February.
NASA’s science mission chief Nicky Fox said it’s worth the effort.
“If we let Swift re-enter, we’d lose that telescope. We’d lose a lot of capability,” she said. “We currently don’t have the budget to build another one to replace it.”
While not everything can be stored in space, Swift is special, Domagal-Goldman said.
True to its name, Swift is designed to rotate quickly to capture late-occurring astronomical events such as gamma-ray bursts and exploding stars. With more discoveries expected from the Webb Space Telescope and the soon-to-be-launched Roman Space Telescope, Swift, if saved, would be busier than ever as “NASA’s first responder.”
Katalyst sees Swift as the starting point for a new repair business in the space. The company’s next-generation robotic rescuer, scheduled to fly next year, will handle satellites up to 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) up. Lee envisions hundreds of robots in orbit one day, not only fixing and lifting satellites, but also refueling them and building solar farms, data centers and other platforms.
Thirty-six-year-old Hubble, which received repeated service from astronauts walking in space during the shuttle age, may follow in 2028 with a life-extending Catalyst boost.
“It’s a national treasure,” Fox said. “People love Hubble.” By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer
Subscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing arguments provides the latest on ongoing trials, major litigation and decisions in courts around the US and the world, while monthly Under the lights feeds legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.
