Engineers completed installation of Katalyst Space’s LINK robotic servicing spacecraft into a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket on Tuesday, June 9, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Launch is anticipated later this month.
NASA contracted Katalyst to build and launch LINK to raise the altitude of the agency’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.
Our planet’s atmosphere creates drag for spacecraft in low Earth orbit, gradually reducing their altitudes if they don’t have propulsion systems to counteract the effect.
Recent solar activity magnified this effect on Swift, and its orbit decayed faster than anticipated.
Based on the orbital and programmatic needs of the mission, Katalyst selected the air-launched Pegasus XL as the best means of reaching the observatory in time to perform the boost maneuver.
Northrop Grumman will launch the rocket using Stargazer, its modified L-1011 aircraft.
NASA has previously used similar versions of this launch vehicle to deploy its ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) and NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) spacecraft.
Next, Northrop Grumman engineers will attach Pegasus XL to Stargazer, which will carry it from NASA Wallops to Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean, for launch.
Learn more about the Swift boost at:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/swift/swift-boost-mission/
By Jeanette Kazmierczak
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
