CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private spacecraft that was supposed to provide a lifeline to NASA’s Swift Observatory managed to get close to the sinking telescope and even took photographs more than a week after the rescue was abandoned. But the three-armed robotic rescuer had to move away due to low fuel, according to Katalyst Space Technologies, which attempted the daring operation. “We were so close, but so far,” Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee told The Associated Press this week. Katalyst’s Link spacecraft came within 15 kilometers (nine miles) of Swift last weekend, using its own sensors to collect data about the doomed telescope for NASA. The rescue effort had already been canceled in August due to Link’s own problems in orbit, but the company wanted the practice for future satellite service calls. Link went into an uncontrollable spin shortly after jumping to Swift’s rescue in July. Flight controllers managed to reduce the plunge and stabilize the spacecraft, consuming precious fuel. In the end, there wasn’t enough fuel left to propel the old Swift into a higher, longer-lasting orbit so it could continue observing the cosmos. Lee attributed Link’s problems to the rush to get him flying. The mission was accomplished in just nine months, and engineers often had to grab whatever was available rather than wait for preferred parts, he said. NASA paid the company $30 million to carry out the attempt, which was always going to be rushed. Both sides saw it as an experiment with little to lose, although no one wanted a shipwreck that would unleash clouds of space debris. “Unfortunately, it was not the result we expected,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said after Sunday’s launch of the Roman Space Telescope. “But that’s exactly the kind of missions we should be doing at NASA. We’ll learn from that.” Isaacman said it makes sense to extend the life of a valuable spacecraft, especially if the cost of salvaging it is less than replacing it. That’s why the Roman telescope was designed to be able to refuel even though it was headed toward an observation point 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) away. It is unlikely that Link will have enough fuel left to attempt another close approach to Swift, according to Lee. But it can continue to exercise its 3-foot (1-meter) arms and provide important data before re-entering and burning up in the atmosphere sometime next month, he said. Launched in 2004, Swift has a little more time left in orbit, depending on how active the sun is. The intense solar storms of recent years are responsible for the telescope falling much earlier than expected. NASA anticipates Swift will pass through the atmosphere sometime between October and the end of the year. The space agency resumed observations with the telescope last week after suspending them earlier this year to save energy. Like Swift, the Hubble Space Telescope’s orbit has also been shortened by solar activity. Katalyst is developing a next-generation spacecraft that could propel the 36-year-old Hubble into a longer orbit. “Hubble still has a few years of life left, right? So the good news is that this is not imminent,” Lee said. Servicing old telescopes and other satellites used to be “a very, very specific concept,” he added, “and we think it will become more and more common.” ___Associated Press health and science coverage receives financial support from the AP Fund for Journalism and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropic organizations, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
