The agency and Katalyst Space announced on Wednesday, August 19, that the Link spacecraft will no longer capture and lift NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory into a higher orbit. Instead, Link will still attempt to rendezvous with Swift and carry out nearby operations, letting engineers gather data that could help future satellite servicing missions.

Swift’s orbit has been decaying, and faster than expected, because increased solar activity has strengthened atmospheric drag. Without the planned boost, NASA expects the observatory to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up later this year.

An ambitious mission

Swift has spent more than 20 years in orbit since launching on November 20, 2004. NASA originally built it for a two-year primary mission, but it kept operating for decades beyond that.

To extend its life, NASA awarded Katalyst a contract in September 2025 to design, build, test and launch Link in under a year. The spacecraft finally launched on July 3, 2026, aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket released from the company’s Stargazer aircraft over Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

After launch, Link established contact with Earth and passed several early checks. By July 15, NASA said its power and propulsion systems had been commissioned, and an early issue with one of its three reaction wheels had been fixed through software patches and operational changes.

Then Link began spinning.

What went wrong

On July 28, NASA said two of the spacecraft’s three reaction wheels had stopped working and that its cold-gas thruster system had lost some functionality. The spin caused communication problems and threatened Link’s ability to control its orientation.

Some progress followed once the issue was identified. By July 31, a series of thruster burns had cut Link’s spin rate from about 9 degrees per second to under 4 degrees per second, and NASA and Katalyst said they were still examining possible paths back to the original mission.

But the correction proved insufficient as Link kept running into problems, leading NASA to cancel the plan to save one of its most productive missions.

Why Swift matters

Swift is more than an aging, falling telescope. Built to study gamma-ray bursts, among the most powerful explosions in the universe, it carries three instruments that observe gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet and visible light.

Its speed is also key. After detecting a gamma-ray burst, Swift can quickly turn toward it and study the fading afterglow, helping scientists understand events like exploding stars and neutron star mergers.

The rescue may have failed, but NASA says Link’s next rendezvous attempt can still demonstrate technology needed to service spacecraft in orbit. For Swift itself, though, time is running out.