Katalyst’s Link rescue satellite goes airborne in advance of launch
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Katalyst’s proposed Swift rescue mission.
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Katalyst’s Link rescue satellite — that will attempt to grab the Gehrels-Swift space telescope and raise its orbit — began its journey to its launch area over the south Pacific on June 18, 2026 when Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus rocket that will launch it was taken airborne by company’s Stargazer L-1011 airplane.
Stargazer, a modified L-1011 operated by Northrop Grumman, took off for Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Attached to the belly of the aircraft was one of the company’s Pegasus XL rockets with LINK inside.
…Stargazer will carry Pegasus and LINK to Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean with stopovers in California and Hawai’i.
Sometime later this month Stargazer will go to its launch area, climb to 40,000 feet, and release the Pegasus rocket, which will then ignite its engines to carry Link into orbit. Link will then attempt to rendezvous with Gehrels-Swift, using its robot arms to catch it (the telescope has no grapple attachment). If successful, it will then raise the telescope’s orbit so that it can resume observations for years to come.
The mission is daring in more ways than just described. Katalyst has never done this before. It is a startup that reconfigured its first demo mission into this rescue mission.
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I’m really hoping this mission succeeds. Yesterday on What About It, Felix said that LINK will detach once Gehrels-Swift has been reboosted. Is that true, or will it remain attached to do other periodic reboosts? I can certainly see arguments for either approach, one giving more longevity, but also adding more unplanned mass to the satellite might stress its aiming mechanisms, or make them inaccurate.
Do you know?
I do not know, nor have I seen any clear statement one way or the other. Based on this lack of clarity from NASA and Katalyst, my guess is that no decision has been made. If Link can succeed, attach itself, and raise the orbit, only after all that has been done then will it be the time to consider what to do next.
The odds are it will detach, because Gehrels-Swift was not designed to operate with that extra mass.