NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies announced Wednesday they are giving up on a robotic mission to rescue the Swift gamma-ray telescope before it falls out of orbit.
The rescue satellite, named Link, launched July 3 on a journey to fly up to NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, capture it with three robotic arms, and boost its orbit high enough to escape a looming reentry. Link is about the size of a refrigerator, with two power-generating solar arrays and three xenon-fueled electric thrusters to send Swift into a safer, higher orbit.
Katalyst, the startup leading the Swift rescue effort, said Wednesday that “ongoing attitude control issues” will prevent the Link
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