NASA Mission to Save Failing Swift Space Telescope Fails

A private mission to rescue NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has failed after the servicing spacecraft suffered severe attitude control malfunctions in low Earth orbit, according to announcements by NASA and mission contractors.

The ambitious rescue effort, developed by Arizona-based Katalyst Space Technologies under a $30 million NASA contract, was designed to prevent the aging gamma-ray telescope from burning up in Earth’s atmosphere later this year. Launched on July 3, 2024, on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, the experimental LINK spacecraft experienced major orientation issues less than two weeks into its flight. According to NASA officials, software patches failed to resolve problems with the probe’s attitude control systems, causing the spacecraft to spin at roughly 9 degrees per second and resulting in sporadic communications.

Orbital Decay and Solar Activity Sparked the Emergency Mission

Launched originally in 2004, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory was built to study gamma-ray bursts, which are short-lived flashes of high-energy light released by powerful cosmic events such as supernova explosions and colliding neutron stars. While the satellite operated long past its initial design life, intense solar activity in 2024 accelerated its orbital decay. Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the astrophysics division at NASA Headquarters, told CBS News that the sun’s activity heats Earth’s atmosphere and increases drag, leaving the telescope on a trajectory to plunge back to Earth by the end of the year.

To combat this threat, NASA awarded Katalyst Space Technologies an accelerated contract to build, test, and integrate the LINK spacecraft in just eight months. The low-cost, high-risk mission utilized a space tug equipped with three robotic arms designed to lock onto a structural flange on Swift and use low-power ion thrusters to push the observatory to a safe altitude of around 370 miles, extending its mission by roughly a decade.

Technical Failures Force NASA to Abandon the Boost Attempt

Although mission managers successfully fired LINK’s thrusters earlier in August to slow its rotational spin, the ongoing control system malfunctions ultimately forced project leaders to scrap the orbital boost. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman addressed the outcome in a public statement, noting that while the primary objective cannot be met, the flight was still a valuable undertaking.

This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting.
Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator

Despite abandoning the reboost attempt, Katalyst will still attempt to approach and rendezvous with the Swift observatory to execute secondary technology demonstrations. Company executives emphasized that the engineering data gathered during the flight will provide a foundational playbook for future proximity operations and satellite servicing.

We took on this high-risk, high-reward challenge and are proud of the milestones we reached along the way,
Ghonhee Lee, Katalyst Space CEO

Ghonhee Lee added that the firm’s immediate focus is turning the lessons learned from the software and hardware anomalies into durable protocols for future commercial missions. NASA leadership echoed that sentiment, asserting that the agency must continue taking calculated risks as low Earth orbit becomes increasingly crowded with active spacecraft.