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A satellite mission built to rescue a space telescope from fiery reentry (the uncontrolled fall back through Earth's atmosphere that destroys aging spacecraft) is instead spinning out of control.
NASA announced Tuesday that Link, built by Katalyst Space Technologies to extend the life of its Swift gamma-ray telescope, ran into attitude control problems over the weekend, less than a month after launch.
Sporadic contact with the spacecraft has followed. What attitude control means and what it means to lose it Attitude control is a spacecraft's ability to point itself in a specific direction.
The word sounds like altitude, but it is about orientation, not height. A satellite without it cannot aim its antenna at the ground or hold a steady course.
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