NASA's Swift rescue slips to late August as LINK battles its spin

Katalyst Space has confirmed that problems with its LINK spacecraft have delayed its attempt to rescue NASA's Swift observatory, with rendezvous now targeted for the end of August. Katalyst disclosed the delay in an update on the spinning spacecraft. Engineers used a thruster to cut LINK's rotation rate from 9 degrees per second …

[Michael Hoffmann]

Man, I so hope they are playing the Mission Impossible theme non-stop.

[KittenHuffer]

--------> You used the wrong icon for the MI theme!

[I ain't Spartacus]

Not the Goldeneye theme?

*click*click*click* I am invincible!

[Tom Chiverton 1]

Still no word on what's gone wrong, or indeed what's left working...

[Anonymous John]

Reaction wheels are a mature technology used in space vehicles from the start. I've heard of them failing after years of service. Not at the start of a mission. Inadequate ground testing?

[UCAP]

Reaction wheels do fail, but generally after years of operation. Failing this quickly is .... unusual.

Wonder if they slapped LINK together but did not test it properly -luach vibrations could easily have disabled bits of they are not fastened down correctly.

[twelvebore]

Vintage

AFAIK there has been at least one mission which suffered an early mission failure in either reaction wheels and/or gyros because the spacecraft was kind of put together in a hurry on a tight budget and ended up using parts that had been sat on a shelf for a few years.Turns out that these high-precision electromechanical assemblies really don't like that. I can't tell you which mission it was - not because I'm sworn to secrecy but because I can't remember!

Anyway, given the haste and tight budget it would not surprise me if something like that was not a contributing factor here, using inventory from the Reaction-Wheels-'R'-Us B-stock parts bin.

[frankvw]

From the announcement posted earlier I understand it's not the reaction wheels themselves that have failed, but that the problem is "due to issues related to the upstream bus electrical power system". Which makes me think of failed electronics, wiring, or other electrical jiggery-pokery that didn't stand up to either launch or the conditions of space, rather than RW failure.

[Anonymous Coward]

An update on the spinning spacecraft.

Neatly written on the side of the spacecraft, but, due to an unfortunate confusion over which way is "up" in space, the rotation means that you have to read it backwards.

[Recessio]

Hopefully they won't need to launch a rescue mission for the rescue mission...

[M.V. Lipvig]

Wow

Amazing that just 100 years ago we were just finishing a switch from exchanging horses for cars, and now we're sending spacecraft up to make repairs to other spacecraft.

[Snowy]

Things break

If they can figure out what is broken and then go on to compete the mission that is rather great :)