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NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies tried to save the aging Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory with a quickly built servicing spacecraft called Link. Link came within about 10 kilometers of Swift but suffered attitude-control problems and never reboosted it. The effort also exposed how NASA expedited payments to keep work moving—and how Swift’s separate operations team used reorientation and AI-assisted coding to buy the observatory more time in orbit.
Why NASA tried to save Swift
Launched in 2004, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory combines gamma-ray, X-ray and visible-light instruments with the ability to turn rapidly toward new targets. That agility makes it valuable for detecting gamma-ray bursts and alerting other observatories to follow up. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center explains that bursts are associated with events such as massive-star deaths and mergers of compact objects, including neutron stars and black holes.
NASA Goddard distinguishes short gamma-ray bursts, lasting less than two seconds, from long bursts, lasting two seconds or more. Swift’s ability to observe across multiple wavelengths and respond quickly helps scientists study these fleeting events.
Swift had outlived its original design life, but it had no propulsion system to raise its orbit. Atmospheric drag was slowly pulling it lower, and greater solar activity increased drag at its altitude. The timing of its eventual reentry was therefore uncertain, but the changing forecast made clear that NASA had limited time to attempt a rescue.
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How NASA and Katalyst tried to move fast
A short path from studies to contract
In August 2025, NASA asked three teams already doing technology-development work under contract to prepare 30-day rescue studies: Katalyst Space Technologies, Starfish Space, and a joint proposal from Cambrian Works and Astroscale. Reporting by Ars Technica says NASA limited the field to existing contractors because starting a new federal procurement could take months or longer.
NASA selected Katalyst in September 2025, awarding it a $30 million contract and roughly nine months to build and launch a spacecraft capable of reaching Swift and boosting it into a higher orbit. Katalyst completed Link’s design by the end of 2025 and was ready for final prelaunch testing in April 2026. NASA Goddard provided access to environmental test facilities on short notice.
What Link was built to do
Link was a bespoke servicing vehicle weighing nearly half a ton at launch. It carried electric propulsion, robotic arms and deployable solar arrays. Katalyst and NASA planned to have it capture Swift and raise the observatory to a higher orbit.
Katalyst principal investigator Kieran Wilson summarized the mission’s practical objective this way: “On paper, it was five requirements. In practice, it boiled down to do no harm and boost Swift.”
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What happened to Link
The failure sequence Katalyst described
Link launched on July 3, 2026, and completed initial checkouts. In an October post-mission account reported by Ars Technica, Wilson said a fault developed in the reaction-wheel control electronics. He singled out a regenerative-braking circuit whose transistor shorted and overheated. Link used reaction wheels, together with cold-gas reaction-control-system (RCS) thrusters, to control its orientation.
Wilson said software and operations changes followed. Later, an RCS valve did not respond, and a subsequent sequence of events caused the spacecraft to spin up again. These are details attributed to Wilson’s account; no separately published formal failure investigation or telemetry release is established in the available reporting.
A close approach, but no reboost
The attitude-control problems prevented Link from completing the rendezvous, capturing Swift and raising its orbit. Ars Technica reported that Link came within about 10 kilometers of Swift, testing aspects of its navigation and orbital maneuvering without completing the rescue. Katalyst said some complex systems, including the robotic arms and plasma thrusters, worked as expected.
NASA and Katalyst called off the rescue in August. Link reentered Earth’s atmosphere on September 25, 2026. As of the October 1 Ars Technica report, Swift was still temporarily observing and was expected to reenter later in 2026; that forecast could change with orbital conditions and solar activity.
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Why the schedule left little room for error
The compressed timeline shaped both engineering and testing decisions. NASA specified the needed outcome but left implementation choices to Katalyst, giving the company room to apply its own engineering judgment. At the same time, reporting says suppliers could not deliver some electrical-system components in time, so Katalyst developed some parts itself. Wilson acknowledged that the power-systems team was understaffed and stretched across work.
NASA astrophysics division director Shawn Domagal-Goldman said the schedule forced difficult choices about which tests could be completed before launch. The reporting establishes schedule and staffing tradeoffs, not that inadequate testing alone caused Link’s failure. Domagal-Goldman said, “I think next time we’d like to get ahead of it in advance of an unexpected change in the de-orbit date.”
What “squeezed Treasury” means
The phrase describes urgent procurement and payment logistics, not a separate Treasury-funded spacecraft program. According to Ars Technica, a government shutdown began five days after NASA awarded the contract, just as the agency was beginning to make payments. Katalyst needed a large early cash flow to place supplier orders. Swift mission director John Van Eepoel told Ars Technica, “They needed a huge influx of cash in order to go buy stuff.”
Van Eepoel also recalled NASA procurement staff moving quickly to arrange payments before offices closed: “I think somebody was on the phone to Treasury because I was sweating that we weren’t going to make it, and I’d done everything that I could.” His account describes an effort to keep contract payments moving amid a shutdown; it does not establish that Treasury separately financed the mission.
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What “vibe coding” had to do with Swift
Swift’s operations team pursued a separate way to extend the observatory’s life: changing its orientation so it presented a more streamlined profile to the atmosphere and experienced less drag. The tradeoff was suspending scientific observations while the observatory was in that configuration; the maneuver was expected to buy several months in orbit.
Jamie Kennea, who led Swift operations until earlier in 2026, said the team repeatedly rewrote software to solve operational problems and used agentic AI, “even vibe coding.” He said, “The use of agentic AI, even vibe coding, helped us out in a lot of cases where we couldn’t figure out how to do things.” This describes software work for Swift’s operations and life extension—not Link’s spacecraft hardware or the cause of Link’s control problems.
What the cost figures do—and do not—show
| Program or figure | Reported amount | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| NASA’s Swift rescue contract with Katalyst | $30 million | Contract award for the rapid Link rescue mission, reported by Ars Technica in 2026. |
| Katalyst’s mission-cost estimate | About $1.5 million within the $30 million target | Wilson’s company estimate, reported by Ars Technica in 2026; it should not be read as an audited final cost. |
| NASA’s OSAM-1 program | $1.5 billion spent before cancellation in 2024 | Reported by Ars Technica in 2026 for a broader servicing and refueling demonstration, not an equivalent bid for the Swift rescue. |
Ars Technica also reported Swift’s value as $500 million. The cost and value figures help explain the stakes, but the rescue’s narrow objective, short schedule and risk allocation differ substantially from OSAM-1’s broader scope. They are not like-for-like measures of what satellite servicing should cost.
What the failed rescue demonstrated
Link did not save Swift, but the attempt was more than a launch followed by a failure: its close approach provided experience in navigating toward an existing satellite, and Katalyst reported that some of its complex systems operated as intended. Those results do not erase the attitude-control failure, but they are relevant to future commercial servicing efforts.
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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Whether a future rescue is practical will depend on the target’s orbit and accessibility, whether the satellite was designed for servicing, the provider’s rendezvous and capture capability, propulsion and attitude-control reliability, procurement lead time, and how much testing can fit before launch. Ars Technica identified Starfish Space and Northrop Grumman among companies pursuing servicing work and reported NASA interest in future servicing of astrophysics platforms.
Wilson said, “We did some really, really cool stuff. I’m absolutely gutted we weren’t able to get further.” That captures the outcome: a failed rescue of a scientifically valuable observatory, alongside a fast-moving attempt that offered practical lessons about procurement, schedule pressure and on-orbit servicing.
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