China<\/a> has attempted a mission like the upcoming one, successfully boosting a satellite into a higher graveyard orbit four years ago.<\/p>\n\u201cThis is the first American space robot to go up and do anything like this,\u201d Lee told The Associated Press. \u201cNASA has all these big senior observatories \u2026 all of them can benefit from a service like this. So what we’re proving with this mission is this is a new play in the playbook that’s available.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will take Katalyst’s autonomous spacecraft, named Lift, about a month to rendezvous with Swift and catch it, and another couple months to raise its orbit from the current 224 miles (360 kilometers) to the desired 373 miles (600 kilometers). <\/p>\n
The 1.6-ton (1.4-metric ton) gamma ray observatory must be above 185 miles (300 kilometers) for the rescue to work. It’s expected to reach that point of no return in October, according to the latest estimates.<\/p>\n
Roughly the size of a small kitchen refrigerator with a 40-foot (12-meter) solar wingspan, Lift sports three arms with a reach of just over 3 feet (1 meter). Each arm has two finger-like pinching grippers that resemble the hands of a Lego mini figure. <\/p>\n
If all goes well, Swift could be back in business by September, according to Lee.<\/p>\n
Worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Swift was never designed to be repaired, let alone retrieved by hands \u2014 human or otherwise. That’s what makes this so challenging, according to company officials, who stress there is no guarantee it will work.<\/p>\n
NASA signed a contract with Katalyst last September with only two requests: It has to be a rush job, but please don’t make things worse. Nine months later, the company is ready to rumble.<\/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, NASA’s astrophysics director.<\/p>\n
NASA has bought a little more time for Swift, turning off all scientific instruments to slow its descent. Observations ceased in February.<\/p>\n
NASA’s science mission chief Nicky Fox said it’s worth the effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we let Swift reenter, we would lose that telescope. We would lose a lot of capability,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t currently have the budget to build another one to replace that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While everything cannot be saved in space, Swift is special, said Domagal-Goldman. <\/p>\n
True to its name, Swift is designed to pivot quickly to capture late-breaking astronomical events such as gamma ray bursts and exploding stars. With more discoveries expected by the Webb Space Telescope and soon-to-launch Roman Space Telescope, Swift, if saved, would be busier than ever as \u201cNASA’s first responder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katalyst sees Swift as the jumping-off point for a new repair business in space. The company’s next-generation robotic rescuer, scheduled to fly next year, will tackle satellites as high as 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) up. Lee envisions hundreds of robots in orbit one day, not only fixing and hoisting satellites but also refueling them and building solar farms, data centers and other platforms.<\/p>\n
Thirty-six-year-old Hubble, which received repeat servicing by spacewalking astronauts during the shuttle era, could follow in 2028 with a life-extending Katalyst boost. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a national treasure,\u201d Fox said. \u201cPeople<\/a> love Hubble.\u201d<\/p>\n___<\/p>\n
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-662824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}