Nearly a month since its launch, a first-of-its-kind commercial satellite built to save NASA’s Swift gamma-ray telescope from a fiery reentry is having problems of its own, the agency announced Tuesday.
The Link satellite developed by Katalyst Space Technologies “experienced issues with attitude control” over the weekend, NASA said, causing the spacecraft to spin and resulting in sporadic communications.
“Preliminary investigation shows that two of Link’s three reaction wheels currently are not operable, and there is some loss of functionality in its cold gas thruster system,” NASA said.
Reaction wheels work by discharging momentum to control the pointing, or attitude, of a spacecraft in orbit. They are standard components on many satellites. The Link servicing satellite’s cold gas thruster system is used for finer control, particularly as it nears the mission’s target: NASA’s Swift observatory.
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