CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A three-armed spacecraft lifted off Friday on a mission to save a NASA space telescope that is slowly losing altitude and could eventually fall back toward Earth.
Northrop Grumman sent Katalyst Space Technologies’ Link spacecraft into space from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. The Pegasus rocket was released from beneath a specially modified aircraft before igniting, placing Link on a path to rendezvous with and capture NASA’s Swift Observatory in roughly a month.
Swift, which has been in orbit since 2004, has been dropping more quickly than expected following recent solar storms. NASA is spending $30 million for Katalyst to grab the telescope and raise its orbit, allowing it to keep studying some of the universe’s most powerful events, including gamma-ray bursts and stellar explosions.
If the rescue proceeds as planned, Swift could resume its view of the universe by September. For now, its science work has been paused in an effort to conserve as much orbital altitude as possible.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope may eventually face a similar rescue attempt. It, too, has been gradually descending as heightened solar activity increases atmospheric drag.
Swift, weighing 1.6 tons (1.4 metric tons), is now orbiting about 224 miles (360 kilometers) above Earth. Katalyst plans to lift the observatory by 150 miles (240 kilometers), returning it close to its original altitude. Link will use its thrusters to raise Swift gradually, avoiding any harsh jolts to the telescope.
Katalyst assembled the mission on an unusually fast timeline, completing preparations in just nine months. NASA pushed for speed because Swift is expected to sink too low for recovery by fall. Without intervention, the telescope is projected to reenter and be destroyed in October.
The launch had been postponed several times at the last minute because of poor weather and technical problems.
“This is a high-risk, high-reward mission,” Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee said ahead of liftoff. “The biggest danger was always we don’t launch anything and we let Swift burn up in the atmosphere. So we were always trying to avoid that risk, and our team has done that.”
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