Link is just the second space mission developed by Katalyst after a technology demonstration launched in 2024 by Atomos Space, a company Katalyst acquired last year.

“When we kicked off the program, I think everyone recognized the biggest risk would be that we weren’t ready to launch in time, that Swift would fall faster than we could get up. We have been able to retire that risk over the last few months by building, testing, and getting ready to operate a spacecraft,” Wilson said. “So that I think has retired the bulk of the overarching concern. Now, there is a lot of residual risk in the program. We still have to get the spacecraft on orbit and operate the spacecraft there successfully, and as we’ve all seen before, that’s a very challenging thing to do.”

The Link spacecraft integrated with Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL rocket.

Credit:
NASA/Ron Beard

It also helped that Northrop Grumman had all the parts for the Pegasus XL rocket in storage. The last two Pegasus rockets were originally ordered by Stratolaunch, a company originally owned by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Stratolaunch gave up the rockets after Allen’s death in 2018, and Northrop was free to sell them to other customers. It sold one to the Space Force in 2021, and the other to Katalyst last year.

Whatever happens after Link’s launch, NASA and its partners believe they’ve written a new template for how to do a responsive space mission.

“Some would call it the first of its kind, a robotic spacecraft that can go and capture an unprepared satellite,” said Robert Lamontagne, vice president for strategic partnerships at Katalyst. “It’s a commercial mission, first and foremost. It’s doing an operational, real-world objective. It’s not just a demonstration, and we’re doing this as a service … This is really a blueprint for commercial and government partnerships.”

“From a programmatics standpoint, I consider this a success already, just from the fact that we’re even going to try this,” Domagal-Goldman said.