NASA gives up on trying to rescue the Swift telescope

Plans to rescue NASA’s Swift Observatory satellite from falling into Earth’s atmosphere are seemingly dead in the water. The agency and Katalyst Space announced yesterday that the Link spacecraft will no longer capture or boost the Swift telescope to a higher altitude due to an ongoing “attitude control issue,” but will instead conduct rendezvous and proximity operations to collect data for future space exploration.

“We knew this was a high-risk, high-reward mission – a first-of-its kind attempt, developed on an unprecedented timeline driven by the Sun’s activity,” said NASA astrophysics director Shawn Domagal-Goldman. “We were all hoping for more science from Swift. But we knew the takeaways from this mission would be worthwhile either way, and we have gained so much through the series of accomplishments up to this point.”