NASA’s Swift Observatory, a 20-year cosmic sentinel that captured supernovas and gamma-ray bursts, is set to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere after October — its rescue mission, spearheaded by private firm Katalyst Space Technologies, has been called off. The ambitious plan, funded with $30 million, aimed to use Katalyst’s Link spacecraft to snag and boost Swift into a safer orbit. But Link itself suffered a catastrophic spin and control failures just weeks after launch in July. Though NASA and Katalyst acknowledge the failure, they’re proud of the lessons learned — potentially paving the way for future satellite rescues. Even as Swift descends from 214 miles, Katalyst plans to keep Link nearby to test new tech, while raising alarms about other aging observatories like Hubble, whose own orbital decay may now face similar hurdles.
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