An important NASA scientific instrument that studies black holes and exploding stars is falling out of orbit — and quickly.

Now the space agency is looking to the private sector to help raise it back up and give it another day in the sun.

One company in a space race to find a solution? Denver-based Astroscale U.S.

The spacecraft in trouble is the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which was designed to observe gamma-ray bursts, among the most powerful explosions known in the universe.

And its roots are in Colorado.

The idea for the observatory was born in the basement of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park during an astrophysics conference more than two decades ago, as scientists wanted a tool to study the hot topic of mysterious gamma-ray bursts, John Nousek, the Swift mission director at Pennsylvania State University, told State College Magazine. 

NASA launched Swift into low earth orbit 21 years ago and its orbit has been decaying, as most aging satellites do.

But because of the sun’s increased activity, NASA said atmospheric drag has sped up the decay and is pushing the agency to look for companies that can boost Swift to a higher altitude before it reenters Earth’s atmosphere as a way to prolong its life.

Swift’s reentry could be as soon as late 2026, according to Astroscale.

Last week, NASA selected Cambrian Works in Virginia and Katalyst Space Technologies in Arizona to design concept studies for a solution through its Small Business Innovation Research Program. Each was awarded a $150,000 contract.

Cambrian Works chose to partner with Astroscale for its study.

Astroscale is a Japanese space debris company founded in 2013 with its U.S. subsidiary based in Denver, which has grown to nearly 100 employees, according to its website.

The company debuted its U.S. office off of Santa Fe Drive and Evans Avenue in 2023, selecting the Denver area due to Colorado’s robust aerospace workforce and connections to giants like Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman and a network of smaller space companies.

Astroscale is also working on the first refueling of a U.S. military satellite in space and the first hydrazine refueling operation done above geospatial orbit — the highest level above Earth.

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Saving the observatory would be a first-of-its-kind mission trying to boost a U.S. spacecraft that wasn’t designed to have its life extended from orbit decay.

As low earth orbit has become increasingly cluttered with satellites and debris amidst the commercial space boom, finding ways to preserve satellites in space longer has been a growing market.

Already in the first half of 2025, rockets have been lifting up about every 28 hours (six hours less than last year), according to the Space Foundation, a Colorado Springs-based nonprofit, in its latest quarterly report. The launches mostly carry communications satellites to build up SpaceX’s and Amazon’s growing constellations.

The U.S. is looking to build satellites with capabilities that will allow them to be refueled or preserved longer. But there’s also many spacecraft in orbit that weren’t built with preservation in mind, like Swift.

Astroscale is seeking to tap the growing market of government and commercial agencies wanting to keep their assets in space.

“It’s just an exciting time to think about refueling and to think about when you can extend the life of an operational satellite and you don’t have to launch something new and put another piece of potential debris in orbit,” said Krystal Scordo, Astroscale’s spokesperson.

But the mission is competitive and NASA said it may also choose neither option and let Swift burn in the atmosphere.

Cambrian Works and Astroscale are combining their technologies from Cambrian’s patented electric Thin Attachment Pad (eTAP™) technology that can attach to spacecraft surfaces to Astroscale’s expertise in getting close to spacecraft and docking.

“Together, we offer NASA a credible, near-term path to extend the Swift Observatory’s mission while demonstrating U.S.-led commercial servicing capabilities,” said Cambrian Works founder Victor Aguero in a press release.

Their competitor, Katalyst, is proposing to lift Swift’s orbit with their robotic spacecraft.

The mission will have an incredibly accelerated timeline, said Scordo. While most space missions take several years to execute, Astroscale hopes its past experience can help get it done by next year.

”We have a lot of expertise and we have a lot of flight-proven technology that’s already operated on orbit,” she said. “Now we can take from the best of all of that and combine it together to bring the solution to NASA that can meet their timeline.”

A precedent for other spacecraft?

Whether NASA chooses to save Swift or not, the studies are still important for the space agency to find ways to boost the orbit of other aging satellites.

“Whether we choose to implement the technologies in this circumstance, understanding how to boost a spacecraft’s orbit could prove valuable for future applications,” said Clayton Turner, NASA’s associate administrator of Space Technology Mission Directorate, in the announcement.

But the agency wants to see if there’s a way to keep the Swift since it can still help scientists better understand how the universe works.

It has studied eruptions in other galaxies, exploding stars, comets, asteroids and even lightning storms on Earth by leading a fleet of telescopes to look deeper into events across the universe.

And just last year, the observatory helped scientists for the first time find signals of two monster black holes ripping apart a massive gas cloud.

There’s currently no plans to replace the observatory, but the agency said part of the study will look into whether boosting the orbit is more cost effective than building a new one from scratch.

“We don’t know if, realistically, it is going to be funded,” Scordo said. “But even to be in conversations with them and to have those technology exchanges that we’re doing right now, it’s really, really cool.”