Katalyst's satellite rescue mission is now in pursuit of NASA's Swift

Launch and Ascent

High above the remote Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and the northernmost part of Australia, an air-launched rocket fired into space on Independence Day weekend to kick off a weekslong pursuit of a NASA astronomy satellite perilously close to falling out of orbit.

Technicians buttoned up the Link satellite inside the nose cone of a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket last month at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. An aircrew flew the rocket and its L-1011 carrier aircraft from Virginia to the US Army's Ronald Reagan Space and Missile Test Range on Kwajalein Atoll, a facility leased from the Marshall Islands more than 2,000 miles southwest of Honolulu.

Once there, the rocket and the L-1011 waited several days for good weather, then took off to fly to a predetermined launch zone south of Kwajalein. With everything in order and upon reaching a cruising altitude of 41,000 feet, the pilots released the 58-foot-long (18-meter) rocket at 4:36 am EDT (08:36 UTC) Friday. Five seconds later, the Pegasus XL ignited its solid-fueled first stage to begin the climb to orbit.

The Rescue Mission

The endeavor to rescue NASA's Swift satellite is the first mission of its kind. NASA put out a call for commercial companies less than a year ago to propose how they could rapidly build and launch a small satellite to latch onto the Swift spacecraft and boost its altitude so that it doesn't come down in a few months.

Katalyst Space Technologies responded with the best offer. NASA awarded the company a contract last September to build and launch a mission to rescue Swift. A little more than nine months later, Katalyst's nearly half-ton Link satellite is safely in orbit.

For anyone who follows the space industry, building, testing, and launching a functioning first-of-its-kind satellite of that size in less than a year is a remarkable achievement; it would usually take several years.

Rendezvous Timeline

It will take several weeks for the Link spacecraft to rendezvous with NASA's Swift observatory.