{"id":805768,"date":"2026-08-07T13:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T13:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/805768\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T13:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T13:48:19","slug":"nasas-bid-to-save-a-prized-space-telescope-takes-an-alarming-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/805768\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA’s bid to save a prized space telescope takes an alarming turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA’s mission to save a vital space telescope<\/a> from plummeting back to Earth is in trouble.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of July, NASA and its commercial partners<\/a> finally mounted a highly anticipated rescue mission to prevent the Swift Observatory<\/a> from falling out of orbit and meeting its demise in our planet’s atmosphere. For most of the month, the operation appeared to be going off without much of a hitch, with the spacecraft meant to boost Swift’s altitude reaching orbit and establishing communications with Earth following a launch.<\/p>\n

But by the end of July, things started to look grim.<\/p>\n

That spacecraft tasked with reaching the Swift Observatory and clamping onto the telescope encountered some mechanical issues<\/a> that have since sent it spinning uncontrollably in space<\/a>. As of now, though, the U.S. space agency<\/a> appears to remain cautiously optimistic that the mission could still be successful \u2013 as long as time doesn’t run out.<\/p>\n

Groundbreaking observatory begins 10-year mission exploring the cosmos<\/p>\n

1 of 12<\/p>\n

This is a section from a larger image the Vera C. Rubin Observatory captured referred to as the “ocean of stars.” The view shows millions of multi-colored stars against a backdrop of galaxies close to the Milky Way\u2019s plane, the crowded disk of the galaxy. (NSF\u2013DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory\/NOIRLab\/SLAC\/AURA)<\/p>\n

Here’s the latest on NASA’s mission to rescue the Swift Observatory.<\/p>\n

What is the Swift Observatory?NASA aims to save falling Swift observatory. See photos of telescope<\/p>\n

1 of 8<\/p>\n

This NASA illustration shows the Swift Observatory in space. The space agency is planning a mission to launch another spacecraft that will help boost the space telescope’s orbit to prevent it from falling to Earth. (NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab)<\/p>\n

Launched in 2004, NASA’s Swift Observatory<\/a> has spent more than two decades orbiting Earth while studying a variety of cosmic phenomena. The satellite’s primary objective, though, is to observe gamma-ray bursts \u2013 events triggered by the catastrophic deaths of massive stars and considered to be the most powerful types of explosions in the universe.<\/p>\n

The satellite is equipped with\u00a0three multiwavelength telescopes<\/a> that are able to collect data in visible, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma-ray light.<\/p>\n

Why is the Swift Observatory falling?<\/p>\n

The Swift Observatory is in a region of space known as low-Earth orbit nearer to the atmosphere, which is also where the International Space Station<\/a> resides.<\/p>\n

All spacecraft in that region can expect to fall to lower altitudes if they don’t have propulsion systems to counteract atmospheric drag and maintain their orbits. But the Swift Observatory has fallen faster than NASA has anticipated because of increased solar storms<\/a> since fall 2024.<\/p>\n

Mission teams on the ground have been keeping Swift at least 185 miles above Earth, where NASA’s mission to save it has the best chance of success.<\/p>\n

Northrop Grumman launches spacecraft on rescue mission<\/p>\n

On July 3, a rocket manufactured by Virginia-based aerospace company Northrop Grumman helped launch<\/a> NASA’s highly anticipated rescue operation, which the agency has simply dubbed the “Swift Boost Mission<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket is affixed to the bottom of the company\u2019s Stargazer, a modified L-1011 aircraft, which took off June 18 at NASA\u2019s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Inside the rocket is Katalyst Space\u2019s LINK robotic servicing spacecraft, which will launch to boost the orbit of NASA\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. Stargazer will fly to Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean, to launch the mission.<\/p>\n

On board Northrop Grumman’s 55-foot-tall Pegasus XL<\/a> was a spacecraft tasked with rendezvousing<\/a> with the Swift Observatory and helping to boost it to a higher orbit.<\/p>\n

Rather than get the rocket off the ground vertically on a launch pad, Northrop Grumman deploys an air-launch strategy<\/a> to send the Pegasus to space.<\/p>\n

Taking off from the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean, the company’s Stargazer L-1011 aircraft climbed to approximately 40,000 feet over the ocean, where it released the Pegasus rocket. After several seconds in free-fall, the Pegasus XL then ignited its first of its three-stage rocket motors, delivering LINK into orbit in about 10 minutes, according to Northrop Grumman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Commercial spacecraft faces troubles on way to Swift\"A<\/p>\n

A solar panel extends from the side of Katalyst Space\u2019s LINK robotic servicing spacecraft in orbit in this image captured by one of LINK\u2019s cameras July 9, 2026. An identical panel stretches from the spacecraft\u2019s other side, and the entire array spans about 20 feet (6 meters). LINK will use the array to power systems as it attempts to boost the altitude of NASA\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory this summer.<\/p>\n

But troubles soon arose for the 5-foot-tall LINK spacecraft, developed by Arizona-based Katalyst Space<\/a> with a\u00a0$30 million contract<\/a>\u00a0from NASA to save the Swift Observatory.<\/p>\n

Powered by 20 feet of solar panels, the 880-pound spacecraft<\/a> managed to establish communications<\/a> the same day as the launch and send a signal back to Earth confirming its power systems were working as planned.<\/p>\n

Once LINK reached Earth orbit, Katalyst was then due to spend a few weeks evaluating the spacecraft’s propulsion, navigation and sensor systems. Once everything checked out, the spacecraft was next due to slowly approach and survey Swift before grabbing the observatory with its robotic arms and raising the orbit to nearly 370 miles high.<\/p>\n

Progress continued as anticipated<\/a>, according to Katalyst \u2013 at least until the end of July.<\/p>\n

That’s when NASA reported<\/a> that LINK “experienced issues” that caused the spacecraft to spin out of control. As a result, ground teams have been only receiving sporadic communications from the vehicle.<\/p>\n

Katalyst works to slow LINK spacecraft’s spin<\/p>\n

The Katalyst ground control team has since been working to stabilize the LINK spacecraft by using a series of electric propulsion thruster burns to reduce how fast it’s spinning, NASA said in a July 31 blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite the setback, NASA said Katalyst has identified “potential paths forward for a boost,” with LINK potentially approaching approaching the\u00a0Swift\u00a0Observatory by the end of August.<\/p>\n

Because Swift has no docking ports or grappling fixtures to grab onto, Katalyst built its LINK spacecraft with a custom robotic capture mechanism meant to attach to a feature on the satellite’s main structure. The process is meant to mitigate the chance of any sensitive instruments being damaged, Katalyst said in a previous\u00a0press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why does NASA want to rescue the space telescope?<\/p>\n

NASA could allow the Swift Observatory to fall back to Earth later in 2026, where it would harmlessly burn up as it careened into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Instead, the space agency wants to rescue the telescope<\/a> and extend its mission for several more years \u2013 negating the need to spend more money to replace the observatory, NASA said in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A successful mission would mark the first time that a commercial robotic spacecraft captures a government satellite that \u2013 unlike other spacecraft like the Hubble Space Telescope<\/a> \u2013 was never meant to be serviced in space. The unprecedented venture, NASA leaders say, would also test a new capability that could be used on other future missions.<\/p>\n

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA’s bid to save a prized space telescope takes an alarming turn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA’s mission to save a vital space telescope from plummeting back to Earth is in trouble. At the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[718,37019,95583,79,187687,75366,315233],"class_list":["post-805768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-nasa","tag-northrop-grumman","tag-rescue-mission","tag-science","tag-space-agency","tag-space-telescope","tag-swift-observatory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}