NASA to Attempt First-Ever Rescue Mission to Save Space Telescope Before Atmospheric Re-entry

A rescue mission will be attempted for the first time in history to boost a space telescope back into orbit before it falls into the atmosphere and burns up.
According to The New York Times (NYT) on June 29 (local time), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will soon begin a mission to lift the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (NGSO) to a higher orbit.
Swift is an aging space telescope that was launched in 2004.
It was originally tasked with observing gamma-ray bursts at an altitude of 595 km above the Earth, but 21 years later, its orbit has dropped to 338 km.
Collisions with the thin atmosphere caused Swift's kinetic energy to decrease slightly, and the cumulative loss of speed dragged its orbital path downward.
According to NASA's analysis, Swift is expected to re-enter the atmosphere within this year.
When satellites and similar objects drop to a lower orbit and re-enter the atmosphere, they disintegrate due to friction with atmospheric particles.
NASA's rescue mission aims to pull Swift, which is approaching the atmosphere, back up to a higher orbit.
The mission has been entrusted to a U.S. startup called Catalyst Space Technologies.
The company developed and built a rescue spacecraft named Link in just nine months.
If the plan proceeds as scheduled, Link will approach the NGSO over the course of a month and a half after separating from the Pegasus rocket.
This is to safely capture Swift without colliding with it, as it orbits at a speed of 7.7 km per second.
If the capture is successful, the spacecraft will slowly raise the orbit over about two months before detaching from Swift.
If the plan goes as intended, Swift's orbit will be 160 km higher than it is now.
This is enough to allow the telescope to perform its mission for another 10 years.
If the rescue mission, which has a budget of 30 million dollars (approximately 46.5 billion won), succeeds, NASA expects to save years of time and hundreds of millions of dollars that would otherwise be required to build a successor telescope.
Sean Domagal-Goldman, a lead scientist for NASA's astrophysics division, said of the rescue mission, "Nobody thought it would be possible. Just getting to where we are is amazing."
(Photo: Getty Images)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.