Private spacecraft will give NASA's Swift space telescope an orbital boost in 2026 in 1st-of

A private company will give a powerful NASA space telescope a new lease on life next year, if all goes according to plan.

Arizona-based Katalyst Space Technologies has scored a contract to raise the altitude of NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which has been hunting for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) from low Earth orbit (LEO) for more than two decades.

Sparse molecules in the wispy outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere have been dragging Swift down over the years, and this process has ramped up recently thanks to increased solar activity (which causes the atmosphere to expand). So NASA tapped Katalyst to build a boosting spacecraft to remedy the situation. It's expected to launch toward Swift in the spring of 2026, rendezvous with the observatory, and raise its altitude.

Success would be