Swift Boost Fails But Mission Does Not End
- Victoria Jean Buckman
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies now work to re-orient the mission to attempt a rendezvous and perform proximity operations.
What Happened
The mission to boost Swift began on July 3 and was intended to prevent the 22 year-old observatory from entering a decaying orbit that would eventually cause it to burn up in our atmosphere later this fall.
By mid July, NASA was already reporting attitude control issues with LINK, the servicing spacecraft developed by Katalyst Space. Throughout July, LINK continued to spin uncontrollably in orbit. Katalyst Space worked diligently to resolve the problem and successfully deployed a flight software update that appeared to recover and stabilize the spacecraft from its previous spin.
However, an August 19 update revealed that NASA and Katalyst had made the joint decision not to attempt the boost maneuver.
What Is Next
NASA stated that LINK will still attempt a rendezvous with Swift and perform proximity operations. This means the mission will continue, although without the planned orbit boost maneuver.
A successful approach while maintaining a safe relative position to a moving satellite, conducting observations, and using LINK’s systems to analyze the spacecraft while in position are all valuable objectives. The experience and data gained from these operations could also help inform future in-space servicing missions.
While Swift will not receive the boost this mission originally hoped to provide, there is still valuable science to be performed and data to be collected that could contribute to future missions. “This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
Unfortunately, Swift's journey will soon come to an end as the observatory descends into Earth's atmosphere later this fall and burns up during reentry. Until then, Swift will continue to operate and contribute valuable science for as long as its systems remain operational and NASA is able to communicate with and control the observatory.
