NASA gives up on saving Swift as Goddard equipment losses mount

The rescue attempt is over. NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies said on 19 August that Link, the spacecraft built to lift Swift, cannot finish the job because of ongoing attitude control problems. Scientific American reported the mission failed; Ars Technica wrote that the satellite is still alive but will not capture the observatory.

Swift has been in low Earth orbit since 2004. It was designed to last two years. It survived more than two decades, and it is now falling. The problem is simple: the observatory has no thrusters of its own, so it cannot raise its altitude. Atmospheric drag does the rest. That drag got worse in 2024, when solar activity increased. NBC News reported that the heated upper atmosphere increases drag and can make orbits decay much faster. NASA awarded Katalyst a $30 million contract in 2025 to build Link. The company had nine months to design, build and launch the rescue spacecraft.

Link launched on 3 July on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, according to NBC News. The plan was unusual. Link, about the size of a refrigerator, carried three robotic arms and three xenon-fueled electric thrusters. It was supposed to grab Swift and raise its orbit high enough to avoid reentry. At first it looked as if the rush had paid off. Mission managers established communications. On 15 July NASA said Katalyst engineers had addressed early communications and attitude control issues. Ars Technica reported that everything went well during the first few weeks in orbit.

Then it stopped. In late July Link spun out of control. On 28 July NASA said the spacecraft's attitude control systems had malfunctioned, causing it to spin and making communications sporadic. NBC News reported the rotation was about 9 degrees per second. Ars Technica reported that two of the satellite's three reaction wheels stopped working, and there were also problems with cold gas thrusters used for finer pointing. That left three low-impulse plasma thrusters as the only means of regaining control. Mission managers fired thrusters to slow the spin, but the underlying problems remained. This month the two organizations agreed the capture and boost would not happen.

Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee said in a statement that the company had taken on a high-risk, high-reward challenge and had learned a lot. "We have already learned a tremendous amount, and now our job is to turn those lessons into something durable," Lee said, according to Ars Technica and NBC News. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said the outcome was not what was hoped for, "but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting."

The science loss is the harder part. Swift was built to detect gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. Ars Technica notes that the observatory combined multi-wavelength instruments with agile pointing, which let it locate bursts for other telescopes to follow up. It is expected to reenter the atmosphere later this year. The observatory cost about $500 million. Katalyst still plans to use Link for a rendezvous demonstration, testing close-in navigation and servicing technologies. That is a small consolation for astronomers. NASA's Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the astrophysics division, said the mission had already advanced in-space servicing capabilities, according to Ars Technica.

Goddard: a second problem

The Swift failure is one blow. Another is unfolding on the ground. On 15 September NPR reported that NASA scientists and engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, say abrupt relocations have cost them equipment, lab space and staff needed to build spacecraft. Seven current and former employees spoke to NPR. Current employees asked not to be named because they fear retribution.

One radio communications lab was moved out of its space in November while employees were at home during the government shutdown. Engineers told NPR they lost almost all their equipment and a one-of-a-kind testing facility, and were not allowed to stop the removal. "We can't do the work because we don't have our $6 million antenna chamber anymore," one engineer said.

The consequences reached the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launched last month after 15 years of preparation and $4 billion. Propulsion engineers ran tests on Roman's fuel using less sensitive gear because higher-quality tools had been lost in a move, two engineers told NPR. A radio communications lab asked to test an antenna before launch had lost almost all its equipment.

Another team said work on DAVINCI, a spacecraft being built to explore Venus, was delayed in August because there was no place at Goddard to do the job. Their lab and a specialized clean room for large spacecraft had been moved out in November. "We do not have a replacement lab," the engineer said. As of August, the lab space they were rushed out of remains vacant. One engineer said they had to launch a satellite called GRITSS in July before it was ready. The team could not test its ability to radio communications back to Earth. "We are half-blind in terms of trying to troubleshoot it," a scientist who worked on GRITSS told NPR. NASA management has said the moves were aimed at reducing costs and eliminating waste and redundancies, and aligned with a previously published master plan.

Jack Kiraly, chief of advocacy at the Planetary Society, told NPR that the relocations add risk to an already risky endeavor. That applies to Swift as well. NASA tried to move fast and accept risk, and the rescue failed. The difference is that Swift's ending was scheduled. The damage at Goddard may be slower, and harder to see before the next launch.