NASA Goddard Space Center
NASA’s Swift space observatory
The Swift Observatory has a 90% chance of falling uncontrollably and burning to Earth by 2027. A mission from the North American space agency will try, against the clock, to prevent this from happening.
A NASA telescope, about twenty years old, is located in a unstable orbitwith a 90% probability of re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere in a out of control and on fire until the end of 2026.
NASA has now awarded a private contract to the North American space technology company Katalyst Space Technologies to carry out an unprecedented operation aimed at saving this space observatory.
The telescope in question is the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatorylaunched on November 20, 2004, which, over its 21 years of operation, studied the most powerful explosions in the universe, known as gamma ray bursts, as well as other phenomena, including the interstellar comet.
The orbit of nearby satellites and spacecraft degrades naturally over time due to extremely rarefied atmosphere in low Earth orbit. You can’t breathe this air, but over time it slows down objects. Lower speed means a lower orbit.
In September, NASA reported that, due to increased solar activity, Swift’s orbit is degrading fasterand. The peak of solar activity occurred last October and, when the Sun is very active, it heats the upper layers of the atmosphere, causing it to expand.
NASA estimates there is a 50% chance of Swift re-entering Earth by June 2026 and a 90% chance of that happening. before 2027.
AND This is where Katalyst comes insays . The company received financing of 30 million dollars to build a robotic spaceship capable of raising Swift to a more stable orbit.
This ship will be launched on a Pegasus XL rocketdeveloped by Northrop Grumman, not from the ground, but from a plane. This configuration allows the rocket to easily reach Swift’s peculiar orbit, something that would be more complicated from the ground, as none of the US spaceports have the necessary conditions for this trajectory.
Katalyst Space’s robotic spacecraft will attempt the first ever rescue of a NASA satellite, in a race against time and atmospheric resistance
If all goes well, the unprecedented mission will become truly interesting. Nothing like this has ever been tried.
Hubble was the target of maintenance operations by astronauts aboard the space shuttle and was designed for this type of intervention. Swift was not designed for this, so Katalyst’s vehicle will use a specially developed robotic mechanism to attach to the telescope without disturbing its delicate set of instruments.
And everything this is being done against the clock. “This is about saving a world-class scientific asset while proving that the United States is capable of executing a rapid response in orbit,” he said. Ghonhee LeeAuo that Catanly, he
“With this mission we are demonstrating that, when necessary, we can pass from problem identification to execution of a robotic docking mission in less than a year.”
If this maintenance mission, which is expected to cause no damage, is successful, it could give a new life to many other space observatoriesincluding, one day, Hubble himself.
The iconic telescope is in a higher orbit than Swift, and is expected to remain operational for several years, but both share the same fate: return to Earth, sooner or later.
