Swift reboost mission ready for launch

WASHINGTON — A high-risk mission to raise the orbit of a NASA astrophysics spacecraft is set to launch later this month after less than a year of development.

Link, a spacecraft developed by Katalyst Space Technologies, is scheduled to launch June 27 on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket. The air-launched vehicle will operate out of Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

Link is designed to approach and then grapple NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a gamma-ray observatory in low Earth orbit. The orbit of that spacecraft, launched in 2004, has been decaying due to atmospheric drag and could reenter as soon as late this year. Link will raise Swift’s orbit, allowing it to continue operations for years to come.

NASA selected Katalyst last September to develop Link under a $30 million contract. While the reboost mission has yet to launch, officials said simply getting to this point was a success.

“I have to be honest, no one thought it was going to be possible. No one thought we would get as far as we’ve already gotten today,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, at a June 17 briefing at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, where Link was integrated with the Pegasus rocket.

He credited both the teams at Katalyst and Northrop for being ready to launch quickly, as well as those within the agency. “People didn’t think the agency itself could bureaucratically do something this fast, and yet we did.”

“Over the last nine months, we have gone from a clean sheet to a spacecraft that is currently integrated on a rocket on an airplane ready to go to Kwaj for launch,” said Kieran Wilson, principal investigator for Link at Katalyst. “This is an absolutely unprecedented development timeline.”

He credited the “exceptional urgency” NASA emphasized in the mission requirements. “When we set out, one of the very few requirements from the NASA team was, you must launch before it’s too late, and we have been able to meet that readiness timeline.”

Link must launch and reach Swift before that spacecraft’s altitude descends below 300 kilometers. Brad Cenko, principal investigator for Swift at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said Swift should reach that altitude in October based on current estimates of the spacecraft’s decaying orbit.

“At the moment we think we have several months where Swift will be at a sufficiently high altitude to give Katalyst folks a great chance to capture and boost us,” he said.

That capture and boost will be risky. Swift was not designed to be serviced and lacks grappling fixtures that Link could use. Link is