NASA's $30M Swift Rescue Fails as LINK Stops Spinning Too Late

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere and burn up later this year. Ars Technica reported on 20 August that NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies abandoned the Link rescue satellite's attempt to grab it.

NASA awarded Katalyst a $30 million contract less than a year ago to build and launch Link. According to Ars Technica, the company had nine months to design a spacecraft that could fly up to Swift, capture it with three robotic arms and boost its orbit out of danger.

Link launched on July 3 aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, NBC News reported. Communications were established, but less than two weeks into the flight, teams began reporting problems with the probe's orientation. On July 15, NASA said Katalyst engineers had addressed early communications and attitude control issues. Then the patches failed.

On July 28, NASA said Link's attitude control systems had malfunctioned. The spacecraft began spinning, producing only sporadic communications. Link was rotating at about 9 degrees per second, according to NASA. Mission managers fired its thrusters to slow the spin this month, but the underlying fault did not clear. Katalyst has not said what caused it. Ars Technica reports that two of Link's three reaction wheels stopped working, and cold gas thrusters used for fine pointing also had issues. That left three low-impulse plasma thrusters as the only way to regain control as Link zipped around Earth at nearly 5 miles per second.

Why Swift could not save itself

Swift launched in 2004 with a two-year design life. It has no thrusters to maintain its own orbit, which is why the rescue attempt was the only option, Ars Technica reported. The observatory studies gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe, triggered by events such as black hole births and collisions between ultra-dense stars.

Its orbit began decaying faster during a period of intense solar activity in 2024. All satellites in low Earth orbit slowly lose altitude to atmospheric drag, but higher solar activity heats the atmosphere and increases that drag. NASA paused Swift's operations ahead of the rescue attempt.

"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 in a statement.

Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee said in a statement that the company took on a "high-risk, high-reward challenge" and is "proud of the milestones we reached along the way." The company said it will keep operating Link to gather data and still try a close approach to Swift for a navigation demonstration.

Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA's astrophysics division, called the effort "a first-of-its kind attempt, developed on an unprecedented timeline driven by the Sun's activity." He said the agency is assessing what milestones remain ahead.

Scientific American reported that NASA spent $30 million on the attempt. The loss of Swift will leave a gap in observations of the high-energy cosmos that is unlikely to be patched soon. Ars Technica put the observatory's value at $500 million.

The failure has a second audience: the companies and agencies betting on satellite servicing. Katalyst is one of several US firms working on rendezvous sensors and robotic arms that could one day refuel, repair or upgrade satellites. Link will not reach Swift, but its approach attempt will still produce data.