A spacecraft that was launched in July on a mission to rescue a decaying Nasa space observatory plunged back to Earth on Friday, concluding a failed mission that will be followed by the telescope’s own demise in several weeks’ time.
Link, billed as “America’s first commercial space robot”, lifted off on 3 July from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific islands with the objective of lifting the orbit and prolonging the life of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a satellite that has studied gamma-ray bursts and other cosmic events for the last 22 years.
