NASA tonight provided a new estimate, for the remaining time that Swift might be operable.
That comes in at one to two months more, at the outside. It was a very game effort, on a very tight time-frame, to try to lift the aging Swift space ‘scope — to a higher orbit, but in the end this mostly proves that… space is hard — and unforgiving. Guidance systems were not 4×4 on the Link craft, so it repeatedly displayed a tumbling motion. That won’t do, at all — for grappling operations in zero-G. Here is likely the last update — on the Katalyst Link craft itself, from NASA, then:
…NASA predictions had shown the shift to low-drag operations had extended Swift’s time above 185 miles (300 kilometers) until October. Below this point, operating the telescope becomes difficult, and the spacecraft’s rate of descent quickly increases.
With the resumption of science observations, the team anticipates Swift will reach that milestone sometime in the next one to two months….
Now you know — with only about eight days left, until Nice, France (and Florence and Rome — and maybe Paris, on the tail-end) for a month. Smile.
नमस्ते
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