A spacecraft sent to boost an ailing NASA telescope has been stabilised after an issue sent it tumbling in space. The announcement raises hopes that the telescope might still be saved.
In an update聽聽on Tuesday 11 August, the US firm said it had 鈥渟uccessfully uploaded a flight software update鈥� that had brought its LINK spacecraft back under control in orbit. 鈥淲e are moving carefully and deliberately, assessing LINK鈥檚 performance at each phase,鈥� said the company.
LINK was聽launched on 3 July聽on a rocket dropped from a plane. The spacecraft, designed and built rapidly in less than a year after an urgent call from NASA, has one purpose: save the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.
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The $500 million Swift telescope, launched in 2004, is designed to study gamma-ray bursts and other short-lived events in space. It can reposition itself very quickly, letting it home in on multiple targets a day. 鈥淣othing can compete with Swift,鈥� says at the University of Leicester, UK, who leads the university鈥檚 involvement in the telescope. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the only thing of its kind that it exists.鈥�
Since its launch, its orbit has slowly been decaying due to atmospheric drag, dropping from about 600 kilometres above Earth in 2004 to less than 350 kilometres today. With no mission in the pipeline to replace Swift, NASA awarded Katalyst a $30 million contract in September 2025 to try and boost the telescope back to 600 km before it re-enters the atmosphere.
In late July, however, LINK was found to be tumbling once every 40 seconds for reasons that were unclear. Over the following two weeks, engineers used the spacecraft鈥檚 thrusters to bring this spin under control.
Those efforts now appear to have been successful, and the mission can continue. 鈥淜atalyst is now focused on performing a series of burns and manoeuvres to adjust LINK鈥檚 orbit relative to Swift over the coming days,鈥� the company said. An updated date for the boost attempt has not been announced.
To lessen atmospheric drag, Swift has been flying in 鈥渟uperman mode鈥� since February, says Evans, essentially positioning the telescope and its solar panels lying flat,聽in line with its forward motion. 鈥淕oing into superman mode has saved us at least 17 km in altitude,鈥� says Evans, but has prevented the telescope conducting any scientific observations.
Once the telescope is only 300 km above Earth, the attempt to boost it back to 600 km would likely no longer be possible because of the high amount of atmospheric drag, so there is a race against time to reach the telescope before it falls too far. LINK has three robotic arms to grab Swift, and would then use its thrusters to slowly raise the orbit over about three months.
鈥淲e knew attempting this boost mission on such an unprecedented short timeline would be very challenging,鈥� says , NASA鈥檚 astrophysics division director. 鈥淏ut we also knew it was worthwhile to try.鈥�
If the boost isn鈥檛 successful, Evans says the telescope likely will have re-entered the atmosphere by Christmas, or Easter 2027 at the latest. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying not to think about that,鈥� he says.
