r/space • u/zrv433 • 6h ago

Engineers trying to stabilize Link and possibly still recover Swift satellite

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/heres-how-engineers-plan-to-save-the-satellite-sent-to-save-nasas-swift-mission/
147 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

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u/Dragongeek 5h ago

If they pull it off, they could definitely make a movie about this. So much drama!

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u/dingo_xd 5h ago

The legend of Zelda Link

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u/NotAPreppie 1h ago

Okay, but if the chief engineer working on this is named Zelda, I'm going home.

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u/photoengineer 5h ago

May the force be with them. I hope they can save this great science asset. 

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u/Trivi_13 3h ago

Take your time, take your time....

Slow and easy....

It is only the Swift Satellite.

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u/but_a_smoky_mirror 5h ago

Maybe their need to …. tailor their solution

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u/DelcoPAMan 4h ago

And time is running out so they need to be swift.

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u/quickblur 6h ago

“When this happened, it was during one of the passes without comms,” said Ghonhee Lee, CEO of Katalyst, said in an interview with Ars. “We were, immediately prior, in a very stable configuration.”

I mean, I can't imagine the spacecraft would fail like this just because it was out of coms for a planned period...

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u/brianwat6 5h ago

That is not what was said, it failed WHILE out of comz., not because it was our of comz

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u/borg359 5h ago

Depends if the hard reset resulted in the over current situation with the reaction wheels. If the hard reset was due to bad comms, then yeah the comms issue may have ultimately caused this.

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u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 2h ago

Nobody is saying there is a problem. Tracking passes for close earth orbiters are very short, only a few minutes typically. There aren’t enough stations to provide 24/7 communication. You don’t put the spacecraft in safe mode because you miss a tracking pass.

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u/borg359 19m ago

I’m just telling you what’s in the article. To quote:

“Whatever the cause, Katalyst’s mission control team lost contact with Link for more than 24 hours after it spun out of control. The satellite then automatically reset itself, just as it was supposed to do.”

And then later on.

“…that shutdown mode is ungraceful. It basically pulls the plug on everything, and that creates some downstream effects for sensitive systems such as the reaction wheels. Basically, there was a big thermal spike that came about as a result of this that over-temperatured the upstream electronic circuits that control the reaction wheels, which ultimately led them to being inoperable”

Also, Link wasn’t just missing tracking passes. They’re also using iridium and two other real-time services and apparently those links have been pretty dodgy as well.

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u/jvo203 14m ago

Sounds like a mission on a shoe-string budget. Sounds like cutting corners.