NASA selected Katalyst last September to develop Link<\/a> under a $30 million contract. While the reboost mission has yet to launch, officials said simply getting to this point was a success.<\/p>\n\u201cI have to be honest, no one thought it was going to be possible. No one thought we would get as far as we\u2019ve already gotten today,\u201d said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA\u2019s astrophysics division, at a June 17 briefing at NASA\u2019s Wallops Flight Facility, where Link was integrated with the Pegasus rocket.<\/p>\n
He credited both the teams at Katalyst and Northrop for being ready to launch quickly, as well as those within the agency. \u201cPeople didn\u2019t think the agency itself could bureaucratically do something this fast, and yet we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOver 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 Kwaj for launch,\u201d said Kieran Wilson, principal investigator for Link at Katalyst. \u201cThis is an absolutely unprecedented development timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n
He credited the \u201cexceptional urgency\u201d NASA emphasized in the mission requirements. \u201cWhen we set out, one of the very few requirements from the NASA team was, you must launch before it\u2019s too late, and we have been able to meet that readiness timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Link must launch and reach Swift before that spacecraft\u2019s altitude descends below 300 kilometers. Brad Cenko, principal investigator for Swift at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, said Swift should reach that altitude in October based on current estimates of the spacecraft\u2019s decaying orbit.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment we think we have several months where Swift will be at a sufficiently high altitude to give Katalyst folks a great chance to capture and boost us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That capture and boost will be risky. Swift was not designed to be serviced and lacks grappling fixtures that Link could use. Link is also Katalyst\u2019s first satellite servicing mission.<\/p>\n
Wilson said the docking will be helped by the fact that Swift is still operational and can control its attitude. \u201cSwift is an unprepared but cooperative partner in the rendezvous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As Link approaches within tens of meters, Swift will maneuver in tandem, allowing Link to inspect potential capture locations and determine which are free of debris, such as crumbling multilayer insulation, that might interfere with grappling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have primary, backup and secondary backup options for features that we believe are suitable for capture using our robotics,\u201d he said. Link is equipped with three robotic arms that will attempt to attach to different points on Swift, but the reboost mission can proceed with only one arm attached to Swift.<\/p>\n
He argued, though, that the risks of the capture and reboost were secondary to simply getting the spacecraft ready in time. \u201cWhen we kicked off the program, I think everyone recognized the biggest risk would be that we weren\u2019t ready to launch in time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have been able to retire that risk over the last few months by building, testing, getting ready to operate a spacecraft.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re confident that as long as we have a spacecraft that can function at a fundamental level, that gives us the freedom and flexibility to work through any issues that we find during rendezvous and the more challenging dynamical operations,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a programmatic 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
He acknowledged there are risks remaining regarding Link\u2019s ability to capture and reboost Swift, as well as uncertainties about space weather conditions that could accelerate Swift\u2019s orbital decay and complicate the reboost effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere still might be risks that we cannot control ahead of us,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just deeply thankful that we\u2019re even giving this a go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 A high-risk mission to raise the orbit of a NASA astrophysics spacecraft is set to launch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,172386,3442,16352,88269,68237,141,3443,145,2058],"class_list":["post-499287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-katalyst-space-technologies","tag-nasa","tag-northrop-grumman","tag-pegasus","tag-satellite-servicing","tag-science","tag-sn","tag-space","tag-swift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}