Artist rendering of Link (on left) about to attach to Gehrels-Swift.
Click for original image.

In parallel announcements today by both the satellite repair startup Katalyst and NASA, due to continuing attitude thruster issues the decision has been made to forego any attempt by Katalyst’s Link spacecraft to grab the Gehrels-Swift space telescope and raise its orbit. From the NASA press release:

Due to an ongoing commercial spacecraft attitude control issue, NASA and Katalyst Space announced Wednesday the LINK spacecraft will not capture or boost an agency satellite to a higher altitude to extend its science mission as planned. However, LINK still will attempt to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to demonstrate key capabilities for the future of space exploration.

At the moment it appears NASA expects Gehrels-Swift to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up before the end of the year. Thus, there is not enough time left to mount another rescue mission. The loss of this space telescope is a major blow to the field of astronomy. If the astronomy community was focused on launching similar space telescopes, rather than big ground-based telescopes that simply can’t do as much, a replacement would likely have already been ready for launch. Alas, no such replacement is planned or has even been proposed.

For Katalyst this failure is actually a shining achievement. It managed to quickly reconfigure its planned first demo mission into Link, and get it built and launched in less than six months. The company also showed resilience in dealing with technical problems after launch. As a result it is not surprising that two days ago it was one of three companies to win a Space Force contract to develop satellite technology for rendezvousing with defunct military satellites, grabbing them, and de-orbiting them. Such technology could also be used directly against satellites of hostile powers.