NASA's Swift observatory, in orbit for over two decades, is losing altitude and expected to drop below 185 miles by early to mid-October, a point at which operations and science observations will likely stop. A robotic spacecraft built by contractor Katalyst Space Technologies, launched in July to boost Swift's orbit, instead began spinning uncontrollably and burned up reentering Earth's atmosphere. NASA has since reactivated Swift's Burst Alert Telescope and resumed automatic pointing at gamma ray bursts, actions it says have accelerated the satellite's orbital decay.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-01
Katalyst Space Technologies built and launched a satellite called Link under a $30 million, nine-month NASA contract to boost the Swift Observatory into a higher orbit before it decayed. Link launched July 3 but suffered a malfunction weeks later that sent it spinning out of control, and NASA confirmed in August the rescue attempt was off. Swift, launched in 2004, lacks its own propulsion and remains at the mercy of atmospheric drag.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-01
Starcloud founders Philip Johnston, Adi Oltean, and Ezra Feilden, along with program manager Garret Jameson, have unveiled Fermi Explorer, a nonprofit aiming to send a 1-kilogram spacecraft toward Alpha Centauri using existing space technology. The mission, budgeted at roughly $15 million and targeting a 2029 launch, would take about 80,000 years to reach the star and would be the sixth object to leave our solar system after Voyager and its peers.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-01
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