NASA races to save Swift telescope from falling back to Earth with daring rescue mission
The $30 million rescue operation is set to begin this week with plans to launch a robotic lifeboat.
NASA has hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to lift the Swift Observatory into a higher orbit where it can continue searching for some of the universe’s biggest explosions. A three-armed spacecraft built by Katalyst will pursue Swift when it lifts off from an atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific on an aircraft-launched Pegasus rocket. The rise could happen as early as Tuesday.
Swift, which has been scanning the universe since its launch in 2004, is sinking faster and faster due to recent intense solar activity. To survive, it needs to reach a higher, more stable orbit as quickly as possible.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope may be at risk next.
Like Swift, Hubble loses altitude as the sun explodes one after another. Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee said his company’s next-generation robot, currently under development, could save the day for the much larger Hubble within a few years.
Only China has attempted a similar mission to the upcoming one, successfully launching 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 very large high-end observatories… they could all benefit from a service like this. So what we’re proving with this mission is that this is a new game in the playbook.”
It will take about a month for Katalyst’s autonomous spacecraft, called Lift, to rendezvous with Swift and capture it, and several more months to increase its orbit from the current 224 miles (360 kilometers) to the desired 373 miles (600 kilometers).
The 1.6-ton (1.4 metric ton) gamma-ray observatory must be more than 185 miles (300 kilometers) above ground for the rescue team to operate. According to the latest forecasts, it is expected to reach the point of no return in October.
About the size of a small kitchen refrigerator with a solar wingspan of about 40 feet (12 meters), Lift sports three arms with a reach of just over 3 feet (1 meter). Each arm has two finger-like pinch grippers that resemble the hands of a Lego minifigure.
According to Lee, if everything goes well, Swift could return to work by September.
The Swift, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was never designed to be repaired, let alone rescued by human or other hands. This is what makes this so challenging, according to company officials, who emphasize that there is no guarantee that it will work.
NASA signed a contract with Katalyst last September with only two demands: It should be a rush job, but please don’t make things worse. Nine months later, the company is ready to rumble.
“I have to be honest. No one thought this would be possible. No one thought we would get to where we are today,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA’s director of astrophysics.
NASA bought Swift some more time by shutting down all scientific instruments to slow Swift’s descent. Observations ended in February.
Nicky Fox, NASA’s science mission chief, said it was worth the effort.
“If we let Swift back in, we’ll lose that telescope. We’ll lose a lot of talent,” he said. “We don’t have the budget right now to build another one instead.”
Domagal-Goldman said not everything can be saved in space, but Swift was special.
True to its name, Swift is designed to spin rapidly to capture recent astronomical events such as gamma-ray bursts and exploding stars. With more discoveries expected by the Webb Space Telescope and the soon-to-launch Rome Space Telescope, Swift will be busier than ever as a “NASA first responder” if she is rescued.
Katalyst sees Swift as the starting point for a new repair business in space. The company’s next-generation robotic rescuer, scheduled to fly next year, will tackle satellites at altitudes up to 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers). Lee imagines that one day hundreds of robots will be in orbit, not only repairing and lifting satellites but also refueling them, building solar farms, data centers and other platforms.
The 36-year-old Hubble, which was repeatedly serviced by spacewalking astronauts during the shuttle era, could be followed in 2028 with a life-extending Katalyst boost.
“This is a national treasure,” Fox said. “People love Hubble.”
