You have to read about the Swift Boost mission because this is one of those space saves I can't get over! NASA just launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on July 3 at 4:36 AM ET after waiting through a couple of delays, and they already made contact with LINK. That's not even the wild part — this wasn't your typical rocket launch because LINK was strapped to a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL which was attached under the belly of a plane called Stargazer! The plane took off first at Kwajalein Atoll, flew up and released the rocket out the back door around 40,000 feet. Then it free-fell for seconds before the engines fired to carry LINK into space — an aerial launch like that is something else entirely. Now Katalyst Space (that's Arizona based) will spend several weeks running health checks on its propulsion and navigation systems while they verify everything worked before it even heads toward Swift, which gives us time to watch from a safe distance!
The actual rescue plan is incredible because LINK has three robotic arms that will literally grab the aging observatory in space. It's going to dock with SWIFT and tug the telescope up into an orbit at about 370 miles high — raising it just enough so it can keep working for another decade or so instead of falling out of orbit by Christmas. They expect this relocation phase alone to take ten to twelve weeks because you don't want a robot arm miscalculating while wrestling a spacecraft in orbit, but the mission is critical. Here's why: SWIFT has been studying gamma ray bursts for over twenty years and it just can't be replaced. Without LINK's help, accelerated orbital decay from recent solar activity would have pulled SWIFT down by year-end, which would mean losing two decades of data at once — that's not okay in the science world!
I keep coming back to what Brad Cenko says about gamma ray bursts because it puts into perspective why we can't just build a new telescope and call it even. He describes them as flashes that release more energy in seconds than our sun will in its entire lifetime, created by colliding stars where elements like gold and platinum are forged — yes, the metal in your jewelry comes from these cosmic explosions! That is wild to think about while you're buying a watch at dinner. Plus SWIFT serves as NASA's "first responder" for sudden events anywhere in the universe, so losing it would be like deleting one of our best sets of eyes on high-energy physics. I can already tell this mission will go down as one of those rare orbital rescue stories that people talk about for years — watch it closely!
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2207959/nasa-boost-mission-rescue-falling-swift-observateurm/
The actual rescue plan is incredible because LINK has three robotic arms that will literally grab the aging observatory in space. It's going to dock with SWIFT and tug the telescope up into an orbit at about 370 miles high — raising it just enough so it can keep working for another decade or so instead of falling out of orbit by Christmas. They expect this relocation phase alone to take ten to twelve weeks because you don't want a robot arm miscalculating while wrestling a spacecraft in orbit, but the mission is critical. Here's why: SWIFT has been studying gamma ray bursts for over twenty years and it just can't be replaced. Without LINK's help, accelerated orbital decay from recent solar activity would have pulled SWIFT down by year-end, which would mean losing two decades of data at once — that's not okay in the science world!
I keep coming back to what Brad Cenko says about gamma ray bursts because it puts into perspective why we can't just build a new telescope and call it even. He describes them as flashes that release more energy in seconds than our sun will in its entire lifetime, created by colliding stars where elements like gold and platinum are forged — yes, the metal in your jewelry comes from these cosmic explosions! That is wild to think about while you're buying a watch at dinner. Plus SWIFT serves as NASA's "first responder" for sudden events anywhere in the universe, so losing it would be like deleting one of our best sets of eyes on high-energy physics. I can already tell this mission will go down as one of those rare orbital rescue stories that people talk about for years — watch it closely!
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2207959/nasa-boost-mission-rescue-falling-swift-observateurm/