The spacecraft will gradually catch up with the Swift telescope before using its robotic arms to latch onto the observatory and gently raise it into a higher orbit, potentially extending its operational life by years.

US space agency NASA is preparing to launch a robotic rescue mission to haul an ageing telescope into a higher orbit to save it from burning up as it falls back down to Earth. The…

Instead of letting a 22-year-old space telescope fall to Earth, NASA wants to rescue the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory with a robotic spacecraft designed to boost the telescope…