NASA sends a 'space robot' to rescue an aging telescope

A robotic spacecraft called LINK launched from the South Pacific on July 3 on a mission to save NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The Swift telescope has been studying space since 2004, but it is slowly falling toward Earth and could burn up in the atmosphere later this year. LINK was built by a company called Katalyst Space Technologies, based in Arizona, and it could change the way humans take care of satellites in space.

LINK rode into orbit on a Pegasus XL rocket, which was dropped from a special airplane called Stargazer flying about 40,000 feet above the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Once the rocket released the spacecraft, LINK began its journey to catch up with the Swift telescope. Over the next two months, it will slowly close the distance between itself and Swift.

When LINK reaches Swift, it will use robotic arms to grab onto the telescope and carefully push it into a higher orbit. This would give Swift more time in space — possibly several more years of science work. Without this help, Swift would keep losing altitude until it fell back to Earth and burned up.

Swift does not have its own engines to fix its orbit. NASA says that recent bursts of solar activity have made the problem worse by increasing the drag — a kind of slow pulling force — from Earth's thin upper atmosphere. That drag has been pulling Swift lower faster than expected.

Katalyst founder and CEO Ghonhee Lee said his team built LINK in just nine months, which is extremely fast for a spacecraft this complex. He called LINK the world's first true 'space robot' because it has robotic arms, the ability to move and steer in orbit, and the power to boost a heavy satellite. The project cost $30 million, but Swift itself is worth about $500 million, so saving it makes good financial sense.

Lee said this mission is about more than just one telescope. He believes the space industry has spent too long treating satellites as things you launch once and then forget about. Robotic servicing, he argues, can keep valuable spacecraft running for far less money than building and launching brand-new ones.

The same robotic technology could also help clean up space junk. The number of satellites orbiting Earth has grown more than ten times over the past decade, and all that clutter is a growing problem. Lee said future robots like LINK could grab old, broken satellites and safely pull them out of orbit, making space safer for everyone.