Shafaqna English– Katalyst Space announced Wednesday(19 Aug 2026) that it had to abandon its plan to save NASA’s aging Swift observatory. The decision came after the company’s rescue craft, which had been launched to tow the satellite to a higher altitude, developed unfixable technical problems during its mission in orbit.
The LINK vehicle, owned by Katalyst, had been sent into space at the beginning of July with the task of reaching the Swift observatory at an orbit of about 216 miles above Earth, attaching itself to the satellite, and hauling it up to a new orbit roughly 373 miles high, which would have given the aging telescope many more years of useful life.
Source: Reuters