Rescue mission to save NASA telescope in danger of crashing back to Earth

NASA has embarked on a “high-risk, high-reward mission” to rescue a telescope that’s in danger of crashing back to Earth in a first-of-its-kind endeavour.

A spacecraft was sent into orbit on Friday to rescue the Swift Observatory, which helps detect powerful explosions in the universe, but is sinking because of recent solar storms.

Global aerospace company Northrop Grumman launched Katalyst Space Technologies’ Link spacecraft from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.

The Pegasus rocket blasted off from the belly of a modified aeroplane, putting Link on course to reach and capture Nasa’s Swift Observatory in about a month.

NASA is paying $30m (£22.4m) for Katalyst to capture the telescope and boost its orbit so it can continue tracking gamma-ray bursts and exploding stars.

If all goes well, Swift could be back scanning the cosmos by September.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope could be a candidate for a similar salvage operation in a few years. It’s also slipping in altitude because of increased atmospheric drag caused by the sun’s outbursts.

The 1.6-ton Swift is currently circling 224 miles (360 kilometres) above Earth. Katalyst aims to raise the telescope’s altitude by 150 miles (240 kilometres), back to where it all began. Link’s thrusters will fire to boost Swift slowly, so there’s no heavy jostling.

Katalyst put the mission together in just nine months. NASA insisted on a rush job because the telescope will be too low to recover by the autumn. Without a boost, it’s predicted to plunge to its demise in October.

Bad weather and technical issues caused a series of last-minute launch delays.

“This is a high-risk, high-reward mission,” Katalyst Space chief executive Ghonhee Lee said ahead of liftoff.

“The biggest danger was always we don’t launch anything and we let Swift burn up in the atmosphere. So we were always trying to avoid that risk, and our team has done that.”