NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, shown in this illustration, launched into Earth orbit in November 2004.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KBRwyle)
An Arizona-based startup is about to attempt a daring rescue of a doomed NASA space telescope — and it’s gone from zero to launch in just 250 days. NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has spent more than two decades scanning the universe for some of its most powerful explosions. Launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts, Swift remains scientifically valuable, but atmospheric drag has been pulling it dangerously close to Earth. Recent intense solar activity has worsened that decay, increasing the urgency of a rescue effort. If nothing is done, “Swift” will soon burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
“Spacecraft de-orbit all the time, but this is not just any spacecraft,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, division director for astrophysics at NASA Headquarters in Washington, during a press conference on June 17. “It’s an observatory with unique capabilities for astrophysics — it can quickly pivot across the night sky to find things that go boom in the night.”
Swift has long been one of NASA’s most versatile astrophysics tools. “Swift was designed to study gamma-ray bursts, short-lived flashes of high-energy light that release more energy in just a few seconds than the Sun will in its entire lifetime,” said Brad Cenko, Swift principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Since launch, Swift has detected more than 2,000 GRBs, including events from near the edge of the visible universe. Its observations have also helped scientists understand where many of the heaviest elements, including gold and platinum, are forged.
However, Swift’s ability to react quickly when the universe produces sudden, powerful events makes it the observatory NASA turns to before its higher quality Webb and Hubble telescopes, which take days to re-point. Swift is NASA’s first responder — and it doesn’t want to lose it.
Rather than allow the observatory to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, NASA turned Swift’s predicament into a test of an emerging technology — robotic satellite servicing. “We decided we wanted to go save this one because of how special it is,” said Domagal-Goldman. “No one thought it was going to be possible. No one thought we would get as far as we’ve already gotten today.”
NASA awarded Katalyst Space Technologies, a U.S. startup based in Flagstaff, Arizona, a contract in September 2025 to attempt the reboost. The company’s robotic servicing spacecraft, called LINK, is designed to rendezvous with Swift, capture it, and raise it to a safer orbit.
What’s remarkable is the speed of its development. Katalyst had less than a year to design, build, test, and launch LINK. “Over the last nine months, we have gone from a clean sheet to a spacecraft that is currently integrated on a rocket on an airplane ready to go to Kwajalein Atoll for launch,” said Kieran Wilson, LINK principal investigator at Katalyst Space.
LINK will launch aboard Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL, an air-launched rocket carried beneath the company’s Stargazer L-1011 aircraft. The aircraft will fly to the Pacific, where Pegasus XL will be released in mid-air near Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands before igniting and carrying LINK toward Swift’s orbit.
It’s a race against time. “One of the very few requirements from the NASA team was: you must launch before it’s too late,” said Wilson. The urgency of Swift’s declining orbit drove nearly every decision, with Swift is expected to remain above a critical altitude for several months, giving Katalyst a narrow window to complete the rescue. “Our best estimate at the moment is that Swift will cross below 300 kilometers sometime around October,” said Cenko.
For now, Swift has suspended science operations and entered low-drag mode to slow its descent, but if the rescue succeeds, it could resume observations. “In the best-case scenario, Swift could return to science operations as early as the fall of this year,” said Cenko.
Swift, illustrated here, is a collaboration between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Penn State in University Park, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems in Dulles, Virginia. Other partners include the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory in Italy, and the Italian Space Agency.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KBRwyle)
Katalyst’s rapidly-made LINK spacecraft includes electric propulsion, multiple rendezvous sensors, robotic arms, reaction-control thrusters and complex software needed for proximity operations.
After launch, it goes through a commissioning phase while in orbit, approaches Swift, captures it and then spends a few months raising its altitude.
“All this is challenging and risky,” said Wilson. “There are a lot of spacecraft that have had far longer development cycles with far more funding behind them that have failed for mundane reasons.”
If successful, LINK could help demonstrate a future in which aging satellites are not automatically abandoned when their orbits degrade or components fail. Instead, spacecraft could be moved, repaired, upgraded or rescued in orbit.
For Katalyst, the Swift reboost is also a chance to prove that a young commercial space company can respond quickly to urgent government needs. “We are an American technology company focused on dynamic space operations,” said Robert Lamontagne, vice president of strategic partnerships at Katalyst Space. “We are here to celebrate America 250 by building a spacecraft in 250 days.”
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
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