The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently launched an emergency space mission to try to prevent the Swift observation satellite, which has been in service for more than two decades, from falling out of control into the Earth's atmosphere and burning up this year. This satellite was launched into orbit in 2004 and is mainly used to observe gamma ray bursts. It is an important scientific tool for studying the early evolution of the universe. However, recent frequent solar storms have continuously disturbed its orbit, causing its flight altitude to continue to decrease, and it currently only orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 224 miles (about 360 kilometers). If left unchecked, Swift may be ablated and scrapped in the atmosphere due to excessive orbital attenuation as early as this year.
To extend Swift's service life, NASA contracted space startup Katalyst Space Technologies to conduct an on-orbit "rescue." The Link spacecraft developed by Katalyst was launched on Friday. The goal is to successfully rendezvous next to Swift, which does not have any propulsion system of its own, and then use the three-arm grasping mechanism on its body to mechanically connect with Swift to raise the orbital height of the entire platform as a whole. The current orbital altitude of Swift is about 224 miles, and Link plans to raise it about 150 miles after docking, bringing it back to an orbit close to its original design, thereby significantly slowing down the rate of subsequent orbital decay.
This mission is not only technically challenging, but also rare is the speed of its preparation: it only took about nine months from contract to launch. The reason why NASA requires such a "rescue" timetable is because estimates show that by around October this year, Swift's orbit will be so low that it can no longer be effectively rescued through this method. During this period, Katalyst needed to complete a complete set of processes such as mission design, spacecraft solution finalization, manufacturing, testing, and launch coordination, with a total investment of approximately US$30 million. Compared with the cost of Swift itself, which is approximately US$500 million, this on-orbit rescue can be regarded as a cost-effective life extension attempt.
Swift's full name is the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. This space observatory has focused on the observation and research of gamma-ray bursts, extremely high-energy cosmic events, for many years. Gamma-ray bursts are believed to be closely related to the collapse of massive stars, the formation of black holes, and violent celestial activities in the early universe. Therefore, Swift's long-term observational data is regarded as an important basis for understanding the early history of the universe and high-energy astrophysics processes. For this reason, NASA will promote this unprecedented commercial on-orbit "drag-to-orbit" operation at a critical moment when the satellite is entering its later years and its orbit is facing severe attenuation, in order to extend the working life of this valuable scientific equipment as much as possible.
Currently, the Link spacecraft has entered its predetermined orbit and will next perform a series of maneuvers and attitude control to gradually approach Swift and eventually complete mechanical docking. After successfully raising its orbital altitude, Swift is expected to continue its observation mission and provide more data for the study of high-energy events in the universe. This operation is also regarded as a new example of commercial aerospace participating in on-orbit maintenance and life extension. In the future, similar "life extension" solutions may be provided for more aging space assets.