NASA races to save Swift telescope - Hubble next

NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the Swift Observatory to a higher orbit where it can continue hunting for some of the universe's biggest explosions.

A three-armed spacecraft built by Katalyst will chase after Swift once it takes off from an atoll in the Pacific's Marshall Islands aboard an airplane-launched Pegasus rocket. Liftoff could occur as early as Tuesday.

Scanning the cosmos since its launch in 2004, Swift has been sinking faster and faster because of recent intense solar activity. It needs to get to a higher, more stable orbit as soon as possible to survive.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope — also at risk — could be next.

Like Swift, Hubble is losing altitude as the sun erupts with one flare after another.

Now 36 years old, it received repeat servicing by spacewalking astronauts during the shuttle era, and could now get a lift-extending boost in 2028.

Katalyst space chief executive Ghonhee Lee said his company's next-generation robot, still in development, could save the day for the much bigger Hubble.

It will take Katalyst's autonomous spacecraft, named Lift, about a month to rendezvous with Swift and catch it, and another couple of months to raise its orbit from the current 360 km to the desired 600 km.

The gamma ray observatory must be above 300 km for the rescue to work. It's expected to reach that point of no return in October, according to the latest estimates.

If all goes well, Swift could be back in business by September, according to Lee.

"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, NASA's astrophysics director.

True to its name, Swift is designed to pivot quickly to capture late-breaking astronomical events such as gamma ray bursts and exploding stars.