NASA is racing the clock on a rescue mission for one of its aging space telescopes, and the launch could happen later in June.
The agency is planning a first-of-its-kind attempt to save the Swift Observatory, which has been dropping toward Earth faster than expected. If the mission works, a commercial robotic spacecraft will intercept Swift and raise it to a higher orbit, extending the telescope’s life.
Swift launched in 2004 and has spent more than two decades orbiting Earth. Its main job is to observe gamma-ray bursts, which are triggered by the catastrophic deaths of massive stars and are described as the most powerful types of explosions in the universe. The satellite carries three multiwavelength telescopes that collect data in visible, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma-ray light.
NASA said Swift is in low-Earth orbit, the same region where the International Space Station operates. Spacecraft there can drift to lower altitudes if they do not have propulsion systems to counteract atmospheric drag.
Swift has been falling faster than NASA expected because of increased solar storms since fall 2024.
NASA could let the observatory re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up. Instead, the agency plans to try to save it and extend the mission for several more years.
The mission would send up a spacecraft designed to capture Swift and raise its orbit over several months, according to NASA. Ground teams are keeping Swift at least 185 miles, about 298 kilometres, above Earth, where NASA said the boost mission has the best chance of success.
Katalyst Space, based in Flagstaff, Arizona, won a $30 million contract in September 2025 to build the spacecraft for the job. In less than a year, the company developed the LINK robotic servicing spacecraft to latch onto a telescope that was never designed to be captured in space.
Swift has no docking ports or grappling fixtures, so Katalyst built LINK with a custom robotic capture mechanism that will 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 press release.
The timing is tight. According to Katalyst, Swift has a 50 percent chance of making an uncontrolled re-entry by mid-2026 without intervention, and those odds rise to 90 percent by the end of 2026.
LINK will launch on Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL rocket. NASA said the rocket is due to launch later in June from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Pegasus XL is about 55 feet tall, roughly 16.8 metres. Instead of launching vertically from a pad, the rocket uses an air-launch system. Northrop Grumman said its Stargazer L-1011 aircraft will take off and climb to about 40,000 feet, about 12,200 metres, over the ocean, where Pegasus will be released and ignite its first-stage rocket motor.
Katalyst said LINK has already been encapsulated inside a payload fairing with the Pegasus XL at NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA said Pegasus was mated in mid-June to the Stargazer aircraft, which will carry it from Wallops to the Marshall Islands ahead of launch.
If it succeeds, the mission will mark the first time a commercial robotic spacecraft has captured a government satellite that was never designed for in-space servicing.
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