Archive · 21 Nov 2025
NASA Hires Startup to Save Falling Swift Observatory by 2026
NASA's Swift Observatory is falling back to Earth.
To save it, NASA hired a company to send a spaceship to catch it and move it to a safer orbit.
They have until June 2026 to do this.
NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is descending and may re-enter Earth's atmosphere uncontrolled by late 2026
NASA has hired Arizona-based Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the observatory's orbit
Katalyst will use its LINK spacecraft to autonomously rendezvous with Swift and reposition it
The mission has a deadline of June 2026 and a budget of $30 million
The rescue effort aims to prolong the observatory's mission and mitigate the risk of uncontrolled re-entry
- Who
- NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies
- What
- Attempting to save the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from uncontrolled re-entry
- When
- Target deadline is June 2026
- Where
- Earth's orbit
- Why
- To prolong the observatory's mission and mitigate risk
- Observatory
- Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory
- Likelihood of uncontrolled re-entry
- About 90% by late 2026
- Startup hired
- Katalyst Space Technologies
- Rescue spacecraft
- LINK
- Launch deadline
- June 2026