This Tuesday, NASA launched a perilous robotic rescue mission that could, in the future, give a second life to other satellites, and this is to prevent one of its old telescopes from turning to dust.
Estimated at $30 million, this mission will thus attempt something unprecedented to save this device that had cost $250 million.
Developed in record time, the robot named LINK must face numerous challenges and unknowns—engineers, for example, not having a very clear idea of what the back of the telescope where it will have to grip looks like.
This operation planned to last several months must begin with the launch of a robot designed to rescue the Swift telescope, which is falling toward Earth and, without intervention, would soon burn up in our atmosphere.
Developed by the American startup Katalyst, the craft lifted off this Tuesday at 10:23 a.m. (GMT) from a Pacific Ocean atoll, carried aloft by a small rocket named Pegasus itself launched from an aircraft.
Actually containing three telescopes, the device had been designed to study gamma-ray bursts, among the most energetic phenomena to occur in the universe.
The telescope had been placed at a height of about 600 km, i.e., in low Earth orbit, in order to be able to communicate continuously with researchers.
One caveat about the location: at such an altitude, the craft would eventually, due to a lack of propulsion, move closer to Earth and burn up in its atmosphere.
