Title: A Rush Rescue for a Space Telescope

On June 8th over the Pacific Ocean, a mission began to save a valuable space telescope because that telescope is falling towards earth. NASA (a space agency) is now working with another company, Katalyst Space Technologies, in a tricky attempt effort to rescue its’ Swift satellite.

Swift was launched in 2004 and cost NASA around $500 million. The telescope is now 21 years old and is falling towards planet Earth right now. So, they are trying to stop the telescope from dropping to Earth and hurting it. If it drops below 186 miles or 300 kilometers, then Earth’s atmosphere will pull hard on it and the sallite will burn up as the telescope gets closer and closer towards planet Earth.

In order to stop this from happening, NASA hired Katalyst to plan and design a spacecraft to save the earth. Developing a mission usually takes years. This time, it took less than one year for the company to build and launch its rescue satellite. They called it “Link.”

The Link spacecraft is as big as a refrigerator. It’s 937 pounds or 425 kilograms. It has three arms and three thrusters. The plan is for Link to locate the telescope. Link was lanched on Friday (Do you know what day exactly?). Because of Swift’s location, the launch had to happen in a special way.

A enormous plane took off instead of a rocket blasting off from the ground. It took the Pegases XL rocket beneath it which is 57 feet (17 meters). It will drop the Pegases rocket when it reaches a height around 40,000 feet (12,200 meters). After that, the rocket will blast off mid-air. Around 13 minutes later, the Link spacecraft will release into orbit above earth.

The hard part begins over the next few weeks. Swift was not designed to be caught by other spacecrafts, so they have to think of a plan to let the Link spacecraft catch Swift. Link will find its target by using its camera and its three arms to catch Swift. Once they are connected together, Link will use its thrusters to push the two satellites higher into space.

Scientists say that this mission must be completed quickly because they predict that by October, Swift will have been fallen too low to be saved. A lead researcher at Katalyst used two words to describe this mission: “Challenging and risky.” For NASA, they think the chance to save the telescope is worth the risk. For Katalyst, the mission is about more than just saving a satellite. Satellites were treated as “throwaway” in the past.

A special mission has begun and scientists are now trying to do everything that they can. They are stopping earth to get hurt. It is important to take good care of the Earth!