The Swift Rescue Mission Could Be Back in Business
The Swift Observatory could have a lot of years of science left in it, if Katalyst Space can manage to save it.
Credit: Katalyst Space
NASA has announced an exciting update in the quest to save the Swift space observatory by arresting its rapid descent into the upper atmosphere.
The mission got up and running under Katalyst Space, a private space company that just started partnering with NASA, in the form of a robotic assistance satellite. Called LINK, it aims to physically rendezvous with Swift, then engage boosters to provide additional upward thrust.
Unfortunately, LINK experienced attitude control problems shortly before it was supposed to attempt the rendezvous, with two of its three flywheels no longer operating properly. This left the satellite spinning, in and out of communications with the team on the ground, who were themselves working frantically to salvage the situation.
The upshot was that the rescue mission almost looked like it’d need rescuing itself, and it now seems the Katalyst team may have managed it.
Katalyst has uploaded new control software which is, according to NASA, “designed to maintain LINK’s stability using the spacecraft’s remaining actuators.” This basically sounds like they accepted the wonky or non-functional behavior of their flywheels and rewrote the control software to work with these new, limited control options.
Katalyst’s diagram of the mission.
Credit: Katalyst Space
That’s the sort of scraping-out of a solution we associate with the space industry, and with NASA in particular, and it’s good to see Katalyst refusing to give up on this important mission. The company had already said that it was “…confident that as long as we have spacecraft that can function at a fundamental level, that gives us the freedom and flexibility to work through any issues we find during rendezvous and more challenging dynamical operations.”
The LINK rescue mission was always rushed, necessarily; we can’t blame private space companies for cutting corners here, since Swift’s descent wouldn’t allow any delays.
Actually, the Swift team at NASA did manage to squeak out a bit more time for the mission. In May, it was revealed that the observatory had been reoriented to reduce drag with the ultra-thin atmosphere at its altitude, slowing the decay of its orbit and giving LINK additional time for rendezvous.
According to the latest predictions, that should keep Swift above critical altitude into early fall. At the time, NASA didn’t know how badly this extra time would be needed, but now it’s likely the only thing keeping the rescue mission viable.
