NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, shown in this artist’s concept, is the target of a now imperiled rescue mission in Earth orbit. A commercial spacecraft launched on an unprecedented mission to rescue an aging NASA observatory now needs a rescue of its own. The Arizona-based start-up Katalyst Space Technologies built it at the space agency’s behest for $30 million. Instead, according to a NASA statement on Tuesday, the rescue spacecraft began spinning out of control and temporarily lost communications. NASA’s space shuttles performed several servicing missions during their lifetimes, most notably five flights to the Hubble Space Telescope, but all of those relied on astronauts for careful hands-on work and the ability to respond when things went wrong.