Artist's illustration of NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory orbiting Earth. (Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab) It's getting to be crunch time for a groundbreaking satellite-rescue mission. A private spacecraft called "Link" is set to lift off late next month to meet up with NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory , which launched to low Earth orbit (LEO) in 2004 to hunt for powerful space explosions known as gamma-ray bursts. Swift is still working just fine. But atmospheric drag is pulling it down at an ever-increasing rate, and the telescope is powerless to resist; it doesn't have a propulsion system. Link will be the scope's savior, if all goes to plan, meeting up with Swift in LEO and boosting it to a higher altitude. Engineers from Katalyst stabilize their LINK robotic servicing spacecraft as it moves into a vibration chamber at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on April 15, 2026. (Image credit: NASA/Scott Wiessinger) This plan is bold and unprecedented.…