La Jornada: NASA seeks to rescue a space telescope that is losing altitude

Cape Canaveral. NASA is looking to save an aging space observation telescope that is losing altitude with a daring rescue mission. The $30 million operation is scheduled to begin this week with the launch of a robotic life preserver.

NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to climb the Swift Observatory to a higher orbit, where it can continue searching for big explosions in the universe. A three-armed spacecraft built by Katalyst will chase Swift once it takes off from an atoll in the Marshall Islands, in the Pacific, aboard a rocket Pegasus launched from an airplane. The promotion could happen today.

Swiftwhich has been scanning the cosmos since its launch in 2004, has been descending faster and faster due to recent intense solar activity. It needs to reach a higher, more stable orbit as soon as possible to survive. The space telescope Hubble of NASA – also at risk – could be next.

Just like Swift, Hubble It is losing altitude as the Sun explodes with one flare after another. Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee said his company’s next-generation robot, still in development, could save the day. Hubblewhich is much bigger, in a couple of years.

Only China has attempted such a mission, successfully boosting a satellite to a higher graveyard orbit four years ago.

“This is the first American space robot to go up and do something like this,” Lee explained to the AP. “NASA has all these great veteran observatories… they can all benefit from a service like this. So what we’re showing with this mission is that it’s a new play on the playbook that’s out there.”

Katalyst’s autonomous ship, called Linkit will take about a month to meet Swift and capture it, and a couple more months to raise its orbit from the current 360 kilometers to the desired 600 kilometers.

The 1.6-ton gamma ray observatory must be above 300 kilometers for the rescue to work. It is expected to reach that point of no return in October, according to the most recent estimates.

If everything goes well, Swift It could be operational again in September, according to Lee, although company officials stress there is no guarantee it will work.

“I have to be honest, no one thought it was going to be possible. No one thought we would get as far as we have today,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA’s director of astrophysics. Although not everything can be saved in space, Swift It’s special, he added.

Faithful to its English translation, Swift It is designed to rotate rapidly and capture breaking astronomical events, such as gamma ray bursts and exploding stars.

Repair business in space

With more discoveries planned by the space telescope Webb and the space telescope Romanwhose release is soon, Swiftif saved, would be busier than ever as NASA’s “first whistleblower.”

Katalyst ve a Swift as the starting point for a new space repair business.