{"id":746279,"date":"2026-06-19T02:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/746279\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T02:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:09:10","slug":"a-bold-satellite-rescue-mission-came-together-in-record-time-but-will-it-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/746279\/","title":{"rendered":"A bold satellite rescue mission came together in record time, but will it work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Link is just the second space mission developed by Katalyst after a technology demonstration launched in 2024 by Atomos Space, a company Katalyst acquired last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we kicked off the program, I think everyone recognized the biggest risk would be that we weren\u2019t ready to launch in time, that Swift would fall faster than we could get up. We have been able to retire that risk over the last few months by building, testing, and getting ready to operate a spacecraft,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cSo that I think has retired the bulk of the overarching concern. Now, there is a lot of residual risk in the program. We still have to get the spacecraft on orbit and operate the spacecraft there successfully, and as we\u2019ve all seen before, that\u2019s a very challenging thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n \"\"
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

The Link spacecraft integrated with Northrop Grumman\u2019s Pegasus XL rocket.<\/p>\n

\n Credit:
\n NASA\/Ron Beard\n <\/p>\n

\n The Link spacecraft integrated with Northrop Grumman\u2019s Pegasus XL rocket.<\/p>\n

Credit:<\/p>\n

NASA\/Ron Beard<\/p>\n

It also helped that Northrop Grumman had all the parts for the Pegasus XL rocket in storage. The last two Pegasus rockets were originally ordered by Stratolaunch, a company originally owned by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Stratolaunch gave up the rockets after Allen\u2019s death in 2018, and Northrop was free to sell them to other customers. It sold one to the Space Force in 2021, and the other to Katalyst last year.<\/p>\n

Whatever happens after Link\u2019s launch, NASA and its partners believe they\u2019ve written a new template for how to do a responsive space mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome would call it the first of its kind, a robotic spacecraft that can go and capture an unprepared satellite,\u201d said Robert Lamontagne, vice president for strategic partnerships at Katalyst. \u201cIt\u2019s a commercial mission, first and foremost. It\u2019s doing an operational, real-world objective. It\u2019s not just a demonstration, and we\u2019re doing this as a service \u2026 This is really a blueprint for commercial and government partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a programmatics standpoint, I consider this a success already, just from the fact that we\u2019re even going to try this,\u201d Domagal-Goldman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Link is just the second space mission developed by Katalyst after a technology demonstration launched in 2024 by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-746279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}