A mission to salvage a sinking NASA telescope ended Wednesday, dooming the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to re-enter the atmosphere in a fiery fashion later this year.
NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies, an aerospace start-up, announced a joint venture to launch a spacecraft known as Link to nudge the ailing observatory back into orbit on July 3.
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Katalyst said in a mission update that Link will not attempt to capture the observatory and boost it to a higher orbit because of problems with controlling the spacecraft.
“While the mission will not have the ending we originally intended, NASA and Katalyst are assessing what milestones remain ahead. We will continue working to extract technical and operational value from the spacecraft,” it wrote.
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NASA said that without intervention, it expects the telescope observatory to plunge through the atmosphere after more than 20 years of tracking some of the biggest explosions in the universe, like gamma-ray bursts and exploding stars. Its descent is expected later this year.
“This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting. The team moved with extraordinary speed to give Swift a chance to carry out more science while advancing capabilities America will need for satellite servicing in the future,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said.
NASA paid $30 million to Katalyst in an attempt to raise the sinking telescope to a safer, longer-lasting orbit after solar activity caused it to lose altitude faster than expected.
The rescue spacecraft fell into an uncontrollable spin a few weeks after liftoff in early July. While flight controllers slowed Link’s tumble, they couldn’t restore it to an optimal position.
“We knew this was a high-risk, high-reward mission – a first-of-its-kind attempt, developed on an unprecedented timeline driven by the Sun’s activity,” Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington, said.
“We were all hoping for more science from Swift. But we knew the takeaways from this mission would be worthwhile either way, and we have gained so much through the series of accomplishments up to this point,” he added.
Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee said the mission was ambitious and was thrown together on an expedited timeline.
“We took on this high-risk, high-reward challenge and are proud of the milestones we reached along the way,” Lee said in a statement to the Associated Press. “We have already learned a tremendous amount.”
Launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe, and other cosmic events and objects, Swift’s observational instruments were deactivated earlier this year to reduce the rate of its descent.
It was orbiting at an altitude of 345 km as of Wednesday. Katalyst had hoped to lift the telescope back to its original orbit of 600 km, to allow for many more years of cosmic observations.
The Link spacecraft launched on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific Ocean.
Teams successfully established communications and conducted in-orbit checks over several weeks before the spacecraft experienced attitude control issues.
Katalyst will continue to operate Link in proximity to the telescope to demonstrate capabilities for future rescue operations.
–with files from the Associated Press
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