A small Arizona company is about to attempt what was once thought impossible: the robotic rescue of a NASA space telescope in a decaying orbit. Katalyst Space Technologies of Flagstaff has integrated its LINK servicing spacecraft onto a Pegasus XL rocket for an imminent air-launch from the Pacific, racing to raise the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory higher before atmospheric drag pulls it into a destructive re-entry. Swift, launched in 2004, is NASA’s rapid-response gamma-ray burst hunter, having detected more than 2,000 of these titanic explosions. “No one thought we would get as far as we’ve already gotten today,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA astrophysics division director. The mission is a high-risk test of automated satellite servicing; if successful, Swift could resume science operations within months of the boost.

The urgency to preserve orbiting instruments is sharpened by the scientific returns they are now delivering. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have for the first time detected salt-water clouds in the atmosphere of GJ504b, a planetary-mass companion 57 light-years away. The object, nicknamed the “pink planet” for its magenta hue, orbits at a relatively cool 290°C—challenging models until the team, led from Northwestern University in the United States, included deep salt clouds in their simulations. “This is the first time we’ve found that salt clouds are critical to explaining a spectrum,” said researcher Aneesh Baburaj. Separately, a group including Brazilian and European scientists used Webb to identify a proto-cluster of six large galaxies, TGSS J1530+1049, when the universe was only 1.5 billion years old, confirming that such structures can host an active supermassive black hole early on.

Looking ahead, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, Hubble’s wide-field successor, has been fully assembled and is being shipped to Florida for an August 2026 launch. With a 2.4-metre mirror and a 300-megapixel camera, Roman will map billions of galaxies and hunt for exoplanets with a coronagraph that includes ultra-sensitive cameras built by two Quebec firms—Nüvü Cameras of Montreal and ABB of Quebec City. These cameras will image regions around stars with unprecedented precision, a technology that outmatched U.S. alternatives during NASA’s selection. Roman, destined for the L2 Lagrange point 1.5 million km from Earth, will also probe dark energy and dark matter, producing in a single year data equivalent to Hubble’s entire three-decade archive.

The next milestone to watch is the launch of LINK, likely within weeks from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Its success or failure will inform the future of satellite servicing and the longevity of space telescopes. After that, Roman’s lift-off will mark the beginning of a new survey era.