NASA launches robot to save Swift telescope falling to Earth
msadowski
27 points
9 comments
July 06, 2026
Related Discussions
Found 5 related stories in 667.0ms across 14,015 title embeddings via pgvector HNSW
- SpaceX's Starfall Demo Mission caseysoftware · 27 pts · June 26, 2026 · 52% similar
- SpaceX rocket set for unintentional moon landing – well, a piece of it anyway beardyw · 61 pts · May 01, 2026 · 52% similar
- Asteroid defense mission shifted the orbit of more than its target LorenDB · 14 pts · March 06, 2026 · 49% similar
- Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth andsoitis · 631 pts · April 03, 2026 · 48% similar
- Artemis II lifts off: four astronauts begin 10-day lunar mission Philpax · 276 pts · April 01, 2026 · 48% similar
Discussion Highlights (4 comments)
kevin_thibedeau
Swift is 10x past its mission lifetime. This is essentially an open demonstration of antisat tech.
__patchbit__
Hubble needs a lift and SpaceX have been ready to go on that side quest.
pavel_lishin
> When it was first launched it sat in an orbit at 373 miles (600 km) and has now lowered to around 220 miles (360 km), with most of that descent in the past two years. Hot damn, that's a lot of altitude lost.
Ancalagon
Dumb question: do most NASA satellites in orbit not have some sort of center of mass hook just in case for operations like these?