GoKawiilSign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Email address Sign Up Thank you!
NASA’s Swift observatory, designed to study the most powerful explosions in the universe, launched into orbit over two decades ago.
Since then, it has provided scientists with a constant stream of invaluable multi-wavelength observations of gamma-ray bursts, which are extremely energetic events that rock our and distant galaxies, providing groundbreaking insights into the earliest days of the universe billions of years ago.
But the observatory is really starting to show its age. The most pressing issue is that thanks to intense solar activity, its orbit has been decaying, pushing it ever close to reentering the atmosphere and burning up.
Now, as part of an unprecedented and risky rescue mission, NASA is launching an autonomous robotic spacecraft, dubbed “Link” and developed by contractor Katalyst Space Technologies, to give it a boost and prolong its life, the Associated Press reports.
NASA's Swift Mission Gets a Boost
While China successfully used its Shijian-21 robotic spacecraft to push a satellite into a higher graveyard orbit in 2022, the Swift rescue mission is a major step up in complexity. For one, the observatory wasn’t designed with this kind of rescue mission in mind.
“This is the first American space robot to go up and do anything like this,” Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee told the AP.
The startup is also looking to give NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope a much-needed boost.
“NASA has all these big senior observatories… all of them can benefit from a service like this,” Lee added. “So what we’re proving with this mission is this is a new play in the playbook that’s available.”
... continue reading