NASA will send a robot to save the Swift telescope from falling to Earth
- Новости
- Science and technology
- NASA will send a robot to save the Swift telescope from falling to Earth
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is preparing an urgent mission to rescue the Swift space Observatory, which is rapidly losing altitude and may enter the dense layers of the atmosphere. The cost of the rescue operation is estimated at $30 million. This was reported on June 28 by the Science X news portal.
The launch of the Link rescue robot may take place as early as Tuesday, June 30, using a Pegasus rocket. The Swift spacecraft, launched in 2004, began to decline due to increased solar activity. In February, NASA turned off its scientific instruments to slow down the fall, but now the observatory is located at an altitude of about 360 km. If it is not raised to 600 km, by October it will reach a critical mark of 300 km, after which rescue will become impossible.
Gonghee Lee, CEO of startup Katalyst Space Technologies
This is the first American space robot that will go to perform such a task. NASA has many old observatories, and all of them can benefit from such maintenance. With this mission, we are proving that a new tool has appeared in our arsenal.
The Link robot is the size of a small refrigerator and is equipped with three manipulators. According to the plan, it will take about a month to get closer to Swift, and two more months to lift the telescope into the target orbit. If successful, the observatory will return to work by September. The complexity of the operation lies in the fact that Swift was not designed to be repaired or captured by manipulators in space.
According to NASA's head of science missions, Niki Fox, if scientists allow Swift to enter the atmosphere, the telescope will be lost. She noted that there is currently no budget for the construction of a new facility. NASA Astrophysics Director Sean Domagal-Goldman, in turn, admitted that the project was initially questionable.
NASA emphasized that Swift is especially valuable for its ability to quickly respond to gamma-ray bursts and star explosions. If the mission is successful, the next candidate for a similar rescue in 2028 may be the Hubble telescope, which is also losing altitude due to solar flares.
A team of astronomers led by Vasily Kokorev from the University of Texas at Austin has obtained the most detailed spectrum of the so—called small red dots, mysterious objects of the early universe, to date. Analysis of the GLIMPSE-17775 object revealed more than 40 spectral lines confirming the "star—black hole" scenario.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
