Swift Rescue Mission Is Underway
- Victoria Jean Buckman
- Jul 4
- 1 min read
A successful launch to boost the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has taken place at 8:36 pm Marshal Islands Time (4:36am EDT) on Friday, July 3 from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific Ocean after several delays.
Northrup Grumman's L-1011 Stargazer aircraft carried the Pegasus XL rocket to an altitude of 40,000 feet where it separated from the Pegasus rocket, after which, the rocket's stages were fired in sequence to reach its intended altitude.
Pegasus is a three-stage launch vehicle capable of delivering up to 1000 pounds into low earth orbit. It can launch from virtually anywhere on Earth with minimal ground support which makes it ideal for missions as critical and time sensitive as this, where other launchers would never have been able to meet the time constraints.
Katalyst Space built LINK, a robotic servicing spacecraft that will deploy and rendezvous with the Swift Observatory to perform the boost to bring Swift back to a safe orbit. Now that the mission is finally underway, the next step is to await for a signal from LINK to confirm the solar panels have deployed as planned and that all power systems are running as needed. We will follow NASA's Swift blog as this mission progresses. Read more about the Swift Mission on our original story HERE.
