The mission is risky, daring and unprecedented: save an ageing NASA satellite from an impending fiery death. The rescue effort, which is slated to begin as early as this week, could pave the way towards extending the life of other space observatories ' even, maybe, the Hubble Space Telescope. The goal of the upcoming mission is to raise the orbit of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, an astronomy satellite that launched in 2004 that is still gathering valuable data on cosmic explosions. Engineers will send a small spacecraft to fly to Swift, grab it with extendable arms and ferry it upwards by around 200 kilometres. That should be high enough to get Swift past the atmospheric drag that would otherwise force it to fall out of the sky by the end of this year. If the mission succeeds, it will be the first time that a robotic spacecraft has carried a science satellite to a higher orbit to extend its lifespan. 'I do think it's a proof of concept for [Hubble] and similar future...
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