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NASA allocated US$30 million to Katalyst to build the LINK spacecraft, capable of docking with the Swift telescope and pushing it back into orbit before atmospheric drag, intensified by the Sun’s cycle, causes it to re-enter the atmosphere, with launch scheduled for June 2026 via a Pegasus XL rocket.
NASA is preparing an unprecedented mission to prevent a space telescope, operating for two decades, from turning into incandescent debris upon re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, launched in November 2004 and considered an essential tool for observing gamma-ray bursts, is losing altitude because upper atmospheric drag is gradually slowing its orbital speed, and this effect has been intensified by the solar activity cycle that peaked in October 2024 and caused the expansion of the upper atmospheric layers. NASA estimates in November 2025 indicated a 50% probability of the telescope re-entering the atmosphere by June 2026 and a 90% chance of it happening before 2027, a scenario that has turned the rescue operation into a race against time.
The solution found by NASA is as creative as it is urgent. The space agency partnered with the private company Katalyst and allocated US$30 million for the development of LINK, a robotic spacecraft designed to dock with the telescope and push it back to a higher orbit where atmospheric drag is insufficient to continue bringing it down. LINK has been undergoing testing since April 14 at the Goddard Space Flight Center and is expected to be launched by a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, although the exact launch date has not yet been confirmed.
Why the Sun is pushing the telescope down
The explanation involves physics that connects solar activity to the fate of satellites and equipment in low orbit. The Sun goes through cycles of approximately 11 years in which its activity increases and decreases, and when the cycle reaches its peak, the radiation and particles emitted by the Sun heat Earth’s upper atmosphere, causing it to expand to higher altitudes. This expansion increases the air density in orbital ranges where space was previously practically empty, and the Swift telescope, orbiting in this region, begins to face increasing drag that acts as an invisible brake, subtracting speed with each orbit around the planet.
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The loss of speed has a direct consequence on the telescope’s altitude. A satellite in orbit maintains its height because orbital velocity balances Earth’s gravity, and when drag reduces this velocity, the equilibrium breaks, and the object begins to descend in a spiral that accelerates as it reaches denser atmospheric layers. The Swift telescope is in this process of gradual descent, and without intervention, the spiral will end with an uncontrolled re-entry in which the equipment will partially disintegrate in the atmosphere, with fragments potentially reaching the Earth’s surface.
What is the Swift telescope and why does NASA want to save it?
The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is not just any equipment in NASA’s scientific arsenal. Launched in November 2004, the telescope specializes in detecting and observing gamma-ray bursts, phenomena that represent the most intense energy releases in the universe and occur when massive stars collapse or when compact objects like neutron stars collide. Over two decades, the telescope has accumulated data that underpinned hundreds of scientific publications and expanded humanity’s understanding of the cosmos’ most extreme events.
More recently, the telescope demonstrated versatility by being used to study the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, an object from outside the Solar System. Swift’s rapid repositioning capability, which can point in any direction of the sky in less than a minute, makes it irreplaceable for observing transient phenomena that appear and disappear in a matter of hours or days. Building and launching a replacement would take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, which makes the US$30 million invested in the telescope’s rescue a bargain when compared to the cost of replacement.
How the LINK spacecraft will save the telescope
The LINK was designed by Katalyst specifically for this rescue mission. The robotic spacecraft will be launched by a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, a model that takes off from an aircraft in flight instead of a ground platform, and after reaching the telescope’s orbit, it will dock with Swift using a mechanism not foreseen in the equipment’s original design, which makes the operation technically challenging. The telescope was not built with docking ports or attachment points for orbital maintenance, and the Katalyst team had to design the LINK to attach to the equipment’s external structures without damaging it.
Once docked, the LINK will activate its thrusters to gradually raise the telescope’s orbit to an altitude where atmospheric drag is negligible. “Swift is still producing valuable scientific data, and we have a way to preserve it while establishing a model for how we operate in space,” declared Ghonhee Lee, CEO of Katalyst, emphasizing that the mission could set a precedent for future rescue operations of satellites and telescopes facing similar problems. The initial forecast points to June 2026 as the launch window, a tight deadline considering that the telescope’s re-entry estimates point to the same period.
What the telescope team did to buy time until the rescue
While the LINK has not yet launched, NASA engineers have taken measures to slow the telescope’s descent. The team turned off instruments that consumed unnecessary power and repositioned the equipment’s solar panels to reduce the surface area exposed in the direction of orbital motion, decreasing the atmospheric drag that pulls the telescope down. These maneuvers function as the space equivalent of shrinking your body when walking against the wind: they don’t eliminate resistance, but they reduce its effect enough to gain additional weeks or months of operation.
The measures have already secured extra time that could be decisive for the success of the rescue. Every day the telescope remains in orbit is one more day for Katalyst to complete LINK’s tests and prepare for launch, and the combination of energy saving and drag reduction bought exactly what the mission needed: a margin for the definitive solution to arrive before the problem becomes irreversible. The race between the telescope’s fall and the LINK’s launch is the kind of silent drama that happens hundreds of kilometers above our heads without most people knowing.
And you, did you know that the Sun can bring down satellites by expanding the atmosphere? Do you think it’s worth spending US$30 million to save a 20-year-old telescope? Leave your opinion in the comments.
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