NASA has outlined plans for a robotic servicing attempt intended to raise the orbit of the agency’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, as the 21-year-old spacecraft’s low Earth orbit decays amid increased solar activity.
According to NASA, Katalyst Space’s servicing spacecraft, called LINK, is scheduled to launch later this month on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The mission will attempt to rendezvous with Swift and boost it to a higher altitude.
Swift, launched in 2004, is part of NASA’s high-energy astrophysics fleet and is used to detect and rapidly report transient events such as gamma-ray bursts. NASA said the observatory acts as a “dispatcher”, providing information to enable follow-up observations by other missions.
NASA said Swift’s orbit has been “rapidly” decaying and that, rather than allowing the observatory to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at end of life, the agency is using the opportunity to advance US spacecraft servicing technology.
In September 2025, NASA said it awarded Katalyst a contract to mount a robotic servicing mission for Swift in less than a year. The planned orbital-boost attempt is intended to extend Swift’s operational lifespan while demonstrating on-orbit servicing capability that NASA says will be important for future space exploration.
More information is available at https://science.nasa.gov/mission/swift/swift-boost-mission/
