Mission to save NASA telescope that’s falling to Earth

A three-armed spacecraft was launched into orbit to rescue a NASA telescope that was in danger of crashing into Earth.

Northrop Grumman launched Katalyst Space Technologies’ Link spacecraft from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific on Friday.

The Pegasus rocket launched from the belly of a modified plane, putting Link on course to reach and capture NASA’s Swift Observatory in about a month.

Swift, launched in 2004, is sinking faster than ever due to recent solar storms.

NASA is paying US$30 million ($43 million) for Katalyst to capture the telescope and boost its orbit so it can continue monitoring some of the biggest explosions in the universe, such as gamma-ray bursts and exploding stars.

If all goes well, Swift could be back scanning the universe by September.

Observations were paused to maintain the telescope’s orbit for as long as possible.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope may be a candidate for a similar rescue operation within a few years.

It also shifts in altitude due to increased atmospheric drag caused by solar flares.

The 1.4-ton Swift circles 360 km above the Earth.

Katalyst aims to increase the height of the telescope by 240 km, bringing it back to where it all began.

Link’s thrusters will fire to move Swift slowly, so there’s no heavy jostling.

Katalyst accomplished this task in just nine months.

NASA insisted on rushing because the telescope would be too low to recover in the fall.

If there is no support, it is estimated that it will decline in October.

Bad weather and technical problems caused a series of last-minute launch delays.

“This is a high-risk, high-reward mission,” Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee said before liftoff.

“The biggest danger was that we wouldn’t launch anything and let Swift burn up in the atmosphere. So we were always trying to avoid that risk, and our team did that.”