This satellite is falling towards Earth, so scientists hatched a plan to give it a lil’ push

Scientists have concocted a plan to stop a powerful satellite from hurtling towards its untimely demise.

NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which studies gamma-ray bursts, is falling towards Earth more rapidly than anticipated. It was supposed to last until 2030, but at the rate it’s going, it’s expected to burn up in our planet’s atmosphere by the end of the year.

So NASA has teamed up with commercial company Katalyst Space to design a robotic spacecraft to push Swift back into higher orbit, potentially extending its life by a decade or two.

Brad Cenko, Swift’s principal investigator, says NASA would normally develop a mission of this scale painstakingly over the course of decades. But the clock is running out for Swift, so this plan was pulled together about in a year-and-a-half.

“This is doing something very different than NASA is used to doing,” Cenko told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “So there is a real chance that it won’t be successful.”

An airplane, a rocket and 3 robot arms

NASA first realized in early 2025 that Swift was being pulled towards Earth’s orbit much more quickly than they’d planned for due to an unexpected increase in solar activity. 

It’s the same burst in activity that’s brought increased visibility of the Northern Lights.

“That’s beautiful, but every time that happens, to me, I just cringe because it means that our satellite is falling faster,” Cenko said.

When Swift first launched in 2004, he says it was 600 kilometres above sea level. Today, it’s about 360.

So NASA contracted the Arkansas-based Katalyst to build something that could reach Swift in time to save it.

The result is LINK, a robotic spacecraft built to interact with Swift. It was a particular challenge, as Swift was never designed for in-space maintenance. 

LINK is nestled inside a rocket, called Pegasus XL, which is, itself, affixed to the belly of a modified L-1011 airplane, called Stargazer.

Later this month, Stargazer will take off Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. If all goes according to plan, the plane will drop the rocket, which will launch into the atmosphere and intercept the satellite. 

LINK will then grab onto Swift using the lobster-like claws on its three robotic arms, and give the satellite a push, Cenko said.

The whole thing is expected to take about two months.

The future of in-space maintenance

If the Swift boost mission works, it will be an “important milestone” for the growing field of in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing, says Mason Peck, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at New York’s Cornell University.

“Today we’re talking about raising an orbit. Tomorrow it could be refueling, replacing failed components, assembling large telescopes, or supporting commercial infrastructure [between the Earth and the moon],” Peck said in an email.

“Demonstrations like this will help establish the operational experience and confidence that will make those future capabilities routine.”

Peck, who formerly served as NASA’s chief technologist, sees it as part of the agency’s longterm strategy “to change how we operate in space rather than merely building the next spacecraft.”

“Extending the life of an existing observatory instead of replacing it is exactly that kind of capability,” he said. “It reduces cost, preserves valuable scientific assets, and creates a more sustainable approach to operating in Earth orbit.”

Cenko says he would hate to lose access to Swift so soon.

The astrophysics satellite, he says, is unique in its ability to monitor a very large area of the sky at any given time, and rapidly manoeuvre to change its focus.

“When there’s something interesting that’s happened in the cosmos — whether it’s a star that exploded, a supermassive black hole that’s swallowing a star, [or] a new comet that just happens to be discovered in our solar system — Swift is really NASA’s first line of defence to rapidly slew and point very sensitive telescopes to study these objects,” he said.

But even if the mission is a bust, he says, it’ll be worth the effort.

“We’re learning ways to do things faster than we’ve been capable of doing them before,” Cenko said. “I think we’ll be able to carry those lessons forward regardless of whether the boost is successful.”