NASA has reluctantly called off a mission designed to nudge one of its telescopes to a higher orbit after a private rescue spacecraft failed to shake off an issue with its attitude control.
LINK, the servicing spacecraft developed by contractor Katalyst Space Technologies, experienced issues with attitude control in late July that caused it to spin uncontrollably in orbit. Last week, it looked like the company may have found a fix but a recent update from NASA has squashed all hope once and for all.
“Due to an ongoing commercial spacecraft attitude control issue, NASA and Katalyst Space announced Wednesday the LINK spacecraft will not capture or boost an agency satellite to a higher altitude to extend its science mission as planned,” NASA wrote in a statement yesterday announcing the end of the rescue operation.
“This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said. “The team moved with extraordinary speed to give Swift a chance to carry out more science while advancing capabilities America will need for satellite servicing in the future.”
Failed rescue
NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory launched into low-Earth orbit on November 20, 2004 to study the most powerful explosions in the cosmos: gamma-ray bursts. Over the course of its mission, Swift gradually lost altitude due to atmospheric drag, but its orbit has been rapidly decaying due to increased solar activity and is likely to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere by the end of 2026.
In an effort to save Swift from this fiery plunge, NASA tapped Katalyst to build a spacecraft to nudge Swift to a more stable orbit.
The three-armed LINK spacecraft took off on July 3 onboard a converted Lockheed L-1011 aircraft from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. LINK was then launched into space from an altitude of 7.6 miles (12.2 kilometers) using a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket.
The mission was going well until LINK began experiencing some issues with its attitude control when two of the spacecraft’s three reaction wheels failed. Reaction wheels control a spacecraft’s orientation and stabilize its rotation using electric motors to discharge momentum. While the spacecraft’s other systems remained healthy, the failure caused LINK to tumble while in orbit and resulted in sporadic communications.
False hope
Katalyst’s team of engineers were racing against the clock to try and repair the spacecraft’s issues in time for it to rendezvous with the Swift observatory. Last week, there was some hope for the mission after engineers uploaded a flight software update for LINK, which was designed to stabilize the spacecraft so that it can continue its approach toward Swift. Now, it seems as though that wasn’t enough to fix the spacecraft’s attitude control issues.
NASA may have given up on its attempt to rescue Swift, but the agency will still use the LINK spacecraft to inform future servicing missions. “LINK still will attempt to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to demonstrate key capabilities for the future of space exploration,” the agency wrote.
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