A spacecraft that was supposed to reach out and grab a falling space telescope ended up spinning out of control itself.
NASA has announced that the Swift Boost mission—originally meant to tow the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory into a higher orbit—has officially been called off. Katalyst Space's LINK spacecraft, which was tasked with carrying out the mission, will still rendezvous with the Swift observatory as planned, but will no longer attempt the orbit-boosting maneuver. According to NASA, the issue stems from an attitude control anomaly that LINK began experiencing in late July—the spacecraft lost directional control in orbit and kept spinning, causing intermittent communication dropouts and partial loss of its propulsion system. Just last month, NASA and Katalyst still sounded optimistic about the mission's prospects, but the situation has clearly changed since then.
The Swift Boost mission launched in early July this year, with Katalyst having less than a year to design the spacecraft. Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division, described it as a "high-risk, high-reward" mission—and the first attempt of its kind ever undertaken, leaving the team with an extremely tight timeline. Swift's orbit has been decaying faster in recent years due to increased solar activity, and this mission was meant to extend its lifespan by roughly a decade.
The Swift Observatory launched in 2004, originally tasked with observing gamma-ray bursts. Today, astronomers also rely on it to get first-hand, rapid-response data on sudden cosmic events. NASA says it will prioritize finding "new solutions capable of quickly responding to cosmic events" going forward, while relying on existing missions to fill the gap in the meantime.
Even though the orbit-boost plan has been canceled, LINK will still attempt to rendezvous with the Swift Observatory in orbit. NASA and Katalyst plan to gather as much data as possible from this rendezvous operation to inform future satellite servicing missions.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said: "This isn't the outcome we hoped for, but that doesn't mean the attempt wasn't worthwhile. The team moved at an incredible pace to try to give Swift a shot at more science, while also advancing the capabilities the U.S. will need for future satellite servicing. We'll learn everything we can from LINK's rendezvous attempt and carry those lessons forward into future missions."
The Swift Observatory is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere and burn up later this year, though NASA has not yet announced an exact date.
