{"id":528147,"date":"2026-07-01T20:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/528147\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T20:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:01:14","slug":"link-spacecraft-set-for-mission-to-boost-nasas-swift-observatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/528147\/","title":{"rendered":"LINK Spacecraft Set for Mission to Boost NASA\u2019s Swift Observatory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/swift\/swift-boost-mission\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">A first-of-its-kind mission<\/a> to raise the orbit of <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/swift\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">NASA\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory<\/a> is poised for launch no earlier than\u00a0Thursday, July 2, 5:09 a.m. EDT (9:09 p.m. UTC+12),\u00a0from Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. A robotic servicing spacecraft called LINK, built by Katalyst Space, will blast into orbit on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket attached to the belly of the company\u2019s Stargazer aircraft, shown here in this photograph from the evening of Tuesday, June 16, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After launch, LINK will attempt to rendezvous with, grapple, and slowly raise Swift\u2019s altitude over several months, preventing it from re-entering Earth\u2019s atmosphere later this year. If this daring mission is successful, it will be the first time a commercial robotic mission has captured a NASA spacecraft that is both uncrewed and not originally designed to be serviced in space.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fscience.nasa.gov%2Fmission%2Fswift%2Fswift-boost-mission%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cmonika.m.luabeya%40nasa.gov%7C59e00ddf2f8e4755d35108ded6a0e9e0%7C7005d45845be48ae8140d43da96dd17b%7C0%7C0%7C639184183761457113%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=iHjIhMI6syLVWBwaDaBhg4MtYb6qCahPicXaygi4t%2BQ%3D&amp;reserved=0\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Follow the Swift blog to learn more about the mission.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Image credit: NASA\/Ron Beard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A first-of-its-kind mission to raise the orbit of NASA\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is poised for launch no&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247,199779],"class_list":["post-528147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space","tag-swift-boost-mission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}