Astra Rocket Falls Back to Earth, Explodes on Impact
Astra’s attempt to launch its Rocket 3.1 booster from Alaska came to grief on Friday as the first stage failed in flight, causing the booster to fall back to Earth where it exploded on impact.
“Successful lift off and fly out, but the flight ended during the first stage burn,” the company tweeted. “It does look like we got a good amount of nominal flight time. More updates to come!”
Dramatic video posted on Twitter showed the rocket lift off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex — Alaska on Kodiak Island. The roar of the engine suddenly stopped, and the rocket fell to Earth.
“We are excited to have made a ton of progress on our first of three attempts on our path to orbit! We are incredibly proud of our team; we will review the data, make changes and launch Rocket 3.2, which is nearly complete,” Astra tweeted.
Astra, which is based in Alameda, Calif., is attempting to develop an inexpensive rocket capable of launching payloads weighing 25–150 kg (55–331 lb) to a 500 km (311 mile) high sun-synchronous orbit for the ultra-low price of $1 million per flight.
7 responses to “Astra Rocket Falls Back to Earth, Explodes on Impact”
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uhoh
Some of the best launch commentary out there.
obviously a major uhoh
Blowing up in flight would be a major uh-oh. This seems to be a problem in the flight control software. I’m guessing Astra will sort that out a bit faster than Boeing is managing with Starliner.
They say the rocket shut down the engine after steering incorrectly.
This group seemed to be closer to it. Or at least took a better video.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-…
Hunters capture video of rocket’s explosion on Kodiak Island
Author: Morgan Krakow
Updated: 8 hours ago
Should probably focus on on the rocket more than the Marxist propaganda if you actually want to make it to orbit.