- KJZZ/Rio Salado College
A Flagstaff-based space company has won a $30 million contract to raise the orbit of a space-based NASA observatory next year before it can drop uncontrolled back into Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA officials say they are in a race against time as the agency’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and its three-telescope system studying gamma rays from space needs a rescue.
The plan is “called rendezvous proximity operations and docking.” Next year, Katalyst Space Technologies will launch a ship into outer space, approach NASA’s observatory; then the plan anticipates both spacecraft will zero out their velocities and dock perfectly for the next step.