NASA races to save Swift telescope from falling back to Earth with
daring rescue mission
[June 29, 2026]
By MARCIA DUNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is racing to save an aging telescope
from falling back to Earth with a daring rescue mission.
The $30 million salvage operation gets underway as soon as this week
with the planned launch of a robotic lifesaver.
NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the Swift
Observatory to a higher orbit where it can continue hunting for some of
the universe’s biggest explosions. A three-armed spacecraft built by
Katalyst will chase after Swift once it takes off from an atoll in the
Pacific's Marshall Islands aboard an airplane-launched Pegasus rocket.
Liftoff could occur as early as Tuesday.
Scanning the cosmos since its launch in 2004, Swift has been sinking
faster and faster because of recent intense solar activity. It needs to
get to a higher, more stable orbit as soon as possible to survive.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope — also at risk — could be next.
Like Swift, Hubble is losing altitude as the sun erupts with one flare
after another. Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee said his company's
next-generation robot, still in development, could save the day for the
much bigger Hubble in a couple years.
Only China has attempted a mission like the upcoming one, successfully
boosting a satellite into a higher graveyard orbit four years ago.
“This is the first American space robot to go up and do anything like
this,” Lee told The Associated Press. “NASA has all these big senior
observatories … all of them can benefit from a service like this. So
what we're proving with this mission is this is a new play in the
playbook that's available.”
It will take Katalyst's autonomous spacecraft, named Link, about a month
to rendezvous with Swift and catch it, and another couple months to
raise its orbit from the current 224 miles (360 kilometers) to the
desired 373 miles (600 kilometers).
The 1.6-ton (1.4-metric ton) gamma ray observatory must be above 185
miles (300 kilometers) for the rescue to work. It's expected to reach
that point of no return in October, according to the latest estimates.
Roughly the size of a small kitchen refrigerator with a 40-foot
(12-meter) solar wingspan, Link sports three arms with a reach of just
over 3 feet (1 meter). Each arm has two finger-like pinching grippers
that resemble the hands of a Lego mini figure.
If all goes well, Swift could be back in business by September,
according to Lee.
Worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Swift was never designed to be
repaired, let alone retrieved by hands — human or otherwise. That's what
makes this so challenging, according to company officials, who stress
there is no guarantee it will work.
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This photo provided by NASA shows Kieran Wilson, LINK’s principal
investigator, and Hunter Robertson, a space systems engineer, both
at Katalyst Space, standing next to their spacecraft inside the SES
(Space Environment Simulator) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Md., April 17, 2026, ahead of thermal vacuum testing.
(Sophia Roberts/NASA via AP)
NASA signed a contract with Katalyst last September with only two
requests: It has to be a rush job, but please don't make things
worse. Nine months later, the company is ready to rumble.
“I have to be honest. No one thought it was going to be possible. No
one thought we would get as far as we’ve already gotten today,” said
Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA's astrophysics director.
NASA has bought a little more time for Swift, turning off all
scientific instruments to slow its descent. Observations ceased in
February.
NASA's science mission chief Nicky Fox said it's worth the effort.
“If we let Swift reenter, we would lose that telescope. We would
lose a lot of capability,” she said. “We don’t currently have the
budget to build another one to replace that.”
While everything cannot be saved in space, Swift is special, said
Domagal-Goldman.
True to its name, Swift is designed to pivot quickly to capture
late-breaking astronomical events such as gamma ray bursts and
exploding stars. With more discoveries expected by the Webb Space
Telescope and soon-to-launch Roman Space Telescope, Swift, if saved,
would be busier than ever as “NASA's first responder.”
Katalyst sees Swift as the jumping-off point for a new repair
business in space. The company's next-generation robotic rescuer,
scheduled to fly next year, will tackle satellites as high as 22,300
miles (35,800 kilometers) up. Lee envisions hundreds of robots in
orbit one day, not only fixing and hoisting satellites but also
refueling them and building solar farms, data centers and other
platforms.
Thirty-six-year-old Hubble, which received repeat servicing by
spacewalking astronauts during the shuttle era, could follow in 2028
with a life-extending Katalyst boost.
“It's a national treasure,” Fox said. “People love Hubble.”
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