Despite everything that US government bodies have faced under the Trump administration, from budget cuts to blocked websites, NASA is still good for innovation.
Not only does it aim to save the two-decade-old space-based telescope with an emergency mission it designed and developed in about a year, but it will also launch that mission from the belly of an airplane.
Packed into the Pegasus XL rocket – the world’s only air-launched rocket – a robotic spacecraft named Link propels the Neil Gehrels Swift observatory back into its orbit.
The Swift Observatory is a “unique telescope that has reinvented itself over the past few years,” Brad Senko, Swift’s principal investigator at NASA, wrote in an email to DW.
“This mission is a great opportunity for NASA to do something new with real positive scientific benefits,” Senko said.
Since this is the first time such an attempt has been made, the mission may fail. But if NASA does not even try to save Swift, by the end of this year the telescope will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner.
Why Save Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory?
The short answer is that NASA wants to save Swift “for science,” Senko said. But it’s also about saving money.
“While it would certainly be possible to build a new and improved Swift, the cost would far exceed the cost of Boost, which is $30 million (€26 million) including launch. Swift cost about $250 million to build and launch in 2026,” Senko said. “So, it could be quite profitable.”
Swift was designed to study gamma-ray bursts. It was launched in 2004.
Gamma-ray bursts are a by-product of powerful explosions in the universe, for example when stars explode or celestial bodies collide.
Those explosions and collisions can create special chemical elements. And scientists say that by studying gamma rays, they may be able to figure out how some chemicals are formed.
“[Swift] “has been extremely successful in this regard, having detected more than 2,000 of these sources to the edge of the visible universe, and helping to confirm that most of the heavy elements in the periodic table, such as the gold and platinum in our jewellery, are latticed in these systems,” Senko said.
Over its more than 20 years of operation, Swift has morphed into an “astrophysics multitool” that now surveys radiation in the visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray parts of the spectrum.
“The universe is an incredibly dynamic place,” Senko said, “somewhere in the universe a massive star explodes every second. It takes at least 1-2 days for Hubble to re-arrive at a target of interest. Swift routinely follows up on objects that go down in the night within minutes. It is NASA’s first responder.”
Originally launched into an orbit about 600 kilometers (370 miles) above Earth’s surface – higher than the average orbit of the International Space Station – Swift has since lost more than 220 kilometers of altitude. Experts believe this is likely due to increased activity on the Sun, such as solar flares, which can create additional pressure on spacecraft orbiting Earth, causing orbits to decay.
Robotic Servicing: How Link Will Boost Swift
The central part of the Swift Boost mission is a robotic servicing spacecraft known as Link. It was made by an American commercial company called Catalyst Space.
Because Swift is falling so fast, the company had only a year to design, build, test, and now launch the spacecraft.
Link will launch from a Northrup Grumman Stargazer L-1011 aircraft aboard a small Pegasus rocket, measuring 17.6 meters (less than 57 feet) long.
Launching from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, it will be lifted to about 40,000 feet over an open area of the ocean and then released into a five-second freefall before igniting the first of the rocket’s three motor stages.
Once Link is released from the rocket into space, Catalyst will need to establish a signal between it and ground control, then test for a few weeks before moving the servicing spacecraft to Swift.
It may take another month to get the link to Swift, as the telescope was not designed with a docking port or grappling fixture. NASA has compared the difficulty of the process to landing on an asteroid.
If the attempt to dock with Swift is successful, Link will fire three electric propulsion thrusters to raise the telescope over a period of several months.
This is a completely new technology in the field known as On-Orbit Servicing (OOS) in the US and In-Space Operations and Servicing (ISOS) in Europe.
“There are broad commercial and defense applications for robotic servicing,” Senco said, referring to the trend toward dual-use technologies in space – technologies for civilian and military use.
If the orbit-raising mission goes as planned, Swift will resume science operations by the end of its planned run in 2030.
Europe eyes space operations and servicing
The European Space Agency is also working on dual-use in-space operations and servicing technology. And – similar to NASA – ESA says the focus helps support its domestic commercial space industry.
“We are working on a portfolio of technologies for rendezvous and capture,” said Berengère Houdou, head of ESA’s Space Security Mission Office. “For example, space sensors and image processing algorithms for autonomous navigation to learn the position of the target satellite and robotic arms to capture and secure it.”
Houdou said these technologies were essential for the next era of operations in space, and “there is really synergy with dual-use applications.”
Edited by: Derrick Williams