NASA Mission To Rescue The Falling Swift Observatory Has Launched

The NASA Swift Boost mission has launched from Marshall Islands on July 3 at 4:36AM Eastern time after a couple of delays, and the agency has started preparing it for its ultimate goal: To rescue the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which is falling faster than anticipated. Swift Boost’s ground teams have already established communication with LINK, the robotic spacecraft designed by Arizona company Katalyst Space to dock with the observatory and to tug it back into a higher orbit. 

It wasn’t your typical rocket launch. LINK was attached to a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, which was in turn attached to the belly of a plane called Stargazer. The plane took off from Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands and then released the Pegasus XL rocket in the air at an altitude of around 40,000. After free falling for a few seconds, the rocket’s engines fired up to deliver LINK to space. 

NASA says making contact with LINK was the mission’s first objective, and it was successful in doing so. LINK has already powered on and will undergo health checks by Katalyst over the next several weeks to assess its propulsion, sensor and navigation systems. After its health checks are done, LINK will head towards the Swift observatory to survey it. 

LINK will then capture Swift, dock with it using its three robotic arms and then tug it upwards until they reach an orbit with an altitude of approximately 370 miles, which will extend its life by a decade or so. Delivering the observatory to a higher orbit is expected to take 10 to 12 weeks. While all spacecraft will eventually fall, recent solar activity caused the observatory’s orbit to decay much faster. Without the help of LINK, the Swift telescope would be falling from orbit by the end of the year.

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has been studying gamma ray bursts for over two decades. Brad Cenko, Swift’s principal investigator, describes gamma ray bursts as “short-lived flashes of high-energy light that release more energy in just a few seconds than the sun will in its entire lifetime.” These bursts are thought to be created by exploding and colliding stars. Cenko says data from Swift confirmed that the “heaviest elements in the periodic table, including the gold and platinum in our jewelry, are forged in these systems.” Scientists now also use Swift as a “dispatcher” or a “first responder” to gather critical information when a sudden cosmic event takes place.