NASA's First-of-Its-Kind Rescue of a Falling Space Telescope Fails, Dooming Swift to a Fiery Re-entry

The LINK spacecraft, built to nudge the 20-year-old Swift observatory to a higher orbit, was crippled by attitude-control failures and will not complete its mission.

NASA has called off a first-of-its-kind mission to rescue its Swift space telescope, which will now plunge through Earth's atmosphere later this year and break apart on re-entry.

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has orbited Earth for more than two decades, studying gamma-ray bursts — the most powerful explosions in the universe, triggered by the births of black holes and collisions between ultra-dense stars. But its orbit has been decaying under atmospheric drag, accelerated by heightened solar activity, and it is expected to burn up by the end of 2026.

To save it, Arizona-based Katalyst Space Technologies built LINK, a three-armed servicing spacecraft that launched July 3 aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket. The plan was for LINK to capture Swift and gradually raise its orbit over several months. Instead, two of LINK's three reaction wheels failed, leaving the spacecraft tumbling at roughly nine degrees per second with sporadic communications. A last-ditch software patch uploaded last week was not enough to stabilize it.

"This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting," said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. NASA said LINK will still attempt to approach and rendezvous with Swift to demonstrate capabilities for future satellite servicing.

Sources: Gizmodo | Space.com | NBC News