The launch of Katalyst’s robotic servicing spacecraft LINK, designed to boost the orbit of NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, is now targeting no earlier than 8:35 p.m. UTC+12 (4:35 a.m. EDT), Friday, July 3, on Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL rocket from Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands.
Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus team has completed its review of Thursday’s launch attempt and identified a software issue that affected Pegasus navigation performance, which prompted a launch abort before Pegasus was released from the L-1011 aircraft. The system worked as intended by safely stopping the sequence, and a software update has been implemented. The Pegasus rocket and L-1011 remain healthy. NASA will provide updates on the July 3 launch attempt on the agency’s Swift blog:
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift
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