Astra Space Rocket 3.3 Fails, 4 Payloads Lost in First Operational Launch Attempt
Astra Space’s first attempt to place satellites into orbit failed on Thursday, with the company’s Rocket 3.3 tumbling out of control after ignition of the booster’s second stage. Astra’s stock (ASTR) plunged by as more than 31 percent to a low of $3.59 before recovering to $3.91 in after-hours trading.
“We experienced an issue during today’s flight that resulted in the payloads not being delivered to orbit,” the company tweeted. “We are deeply sorry to our customers @NASA and the small satellite teams. More information will be provided after we complete a data review.”
The series of events that led to the failure is unclear. Onboard video appeared to show a failure of the payload shroud to separate. It is possible that the shroud was blown off by second stage engine’s ignition, causing the vehicle to tumble out of control.
It was the fourth failure in five orbital launch attempts for Astra Space’s small-satellite launcher. Rocket 3.3 placed a dummy payload into orbit from the Pacific Spaceport Complex — Alaska in November. Today’s launch was Astra Space’s first flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Rocket 3.3 carried four CubeSats developed by NASA’s Johnson Space Center and three universities. NASA sponsored the CubeSat launch under the Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) program. It was the 41st ELaNa mission, and the program’s first launch with Astra Space.
The CubeSats lost in the accident included:
BAMA-1 – University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
BAMA-1 is a technology demonstration mission that will conduct a flight demonstration of a drag sail module by rapidly deorbiting the satellite. Spacecraft equipped with drag sail technology will be able to deorbit reliably and rapidly, thus reducing space debris and the risk to operational satellites, space stations, and crewed vehicles.
INCA – New Mexico State University, Las Cruces
INCA (Ionospheric Neutron Content Analyzer) is a scientific investigation mission that will study the latitude and time dependencies of the neutron spectrum in low-Earth orbit for the first time to improve current space weather models and mitigate threats to space and airborne assets. The measurements will come from a new directional neutron spectrometer, which is being developed in conjunction with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of New Hampshire.
QubeSat – University of California, Berkeley
QubeSat is a technology demonstration mission. It will test and characterize the effects of space conditions on quantum gyroscopes using nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. Nitrogen-vacancy centers are nitrogen defect points in diamond with quantum properties that allow scientists to form gyroscopes that measure angular velocity. Nitrogen-vacancy center-based technologies are particularly well suited for space because of their high accuracy, small form factor, and radiation tolerance.
R5-S1 – NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston
R5-S1 is intended to demonstrate a fast and cost-effective way to build successful CubeSats in addition to demonstrating some technologies that are important to in-space inspection, which could help to make crewed space exploration safer and more efficient. R5-S1 could prove a cheaper way to demonstrate crucial technologies like high-performance computers, cameras, algorithms, and a new way for satellites to transmit pictures to the ground.
The ELaNa 41 mission CubeSats were selected through NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) and were assigned to the mission by NASA’s Launch Services Program based at the Kennedy Space Center. CSLI provides launch opportunities for small satellite payloads built by universities, high schools, NASA Centers, and non-profit organizations.
22 responses to “Astra Space Rocket 3.3 Fails, 4 Payloads Lost in First Operational Launch Attempt”
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Sad to hear about the failure. Hopefully they will be able to launch again.
I hope they have the money to continue. its a good stock buy if you can risk it 🙂
Which is exactly how the rich get richer.?
I know
I like this shop, I hope they make it. Good luck guys.
a little fun money ….I hope they make it. watched a bit of the Elon show…10 minutes
Pro tip. Less weed before facing adoring crowds
no information except reading between lines. unlikely to go to orbit this year which confirms what I was told this morning. sigh
Watched it too. He addressed all the points we discuss on this forum. He never hinted that SS/SH was ready to fly now, and thought that the technical problem set would come in about the same time the environmental assessment was done. Also of note, he said he was sure SS/SH was going to make it to orbit by the end of the year. Which really puts the potential first flight far into the future.
He also hinted that the FAA will approve the license which would move up the flight test time line. The delay will be if they have to do a full EIS and relocate the test flight to the Cape. It also looks like he is sticking with Starbase and will do a full EIS if needed and fight any lawsuits filed by the environmentalists. It was also interesting watching how the arms of the tower quickly stacked the Starship and Super Booster.
You didn’t get it did you? He was offered a chance to say the delay was entirely the fault of the government, and he admitted the vehicle was not ready to fly. The fully admitted system flight reediness lies in the future yet.
Musk said first launch of Starship to orbit would be ready by March.
Yep, just like this article is stating… Multiple flights with eventual success after failures.
https://apnews.com/article/…
SpaceX’s Elon Musk: 1st orbital Starship flight maybe March
By MARCIA DUNN
February 10, 2022
“CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX’s Elon Musk said Thursday that the first orbital flight of his towering Starship — the world’s most powerful rocket ever built — could come in another month or two.
While he anticipates failures, he’s confident Starship will reach orbit by the end of this year. “
Yes. How far in the future depends on the FAA findings.
That’s because Starship can’t fly without a working launch facility and that remains a work-in-progress. The “end of the year” comment was in context with having to shift emphasis to KSC from Starbase if the FAA environmental assessment is unfavorable. If that doesn’t need to happen, then he said March or April would be possible.
I think this is a moving target. I’m ready to believe a flight with older raptors would be ready about now, but seems things went from, ‘this engine is working out good enough.’, to ‘We can throw these away.’, to ‘we’re going with the new engines.’. Not a lot of complaining about the environmental assessment either. SS/SH seems to have become like the pending invasion of Ukraine. Lot’s of hardware, lots of developments, can happen any day now. ….. But, maybe not quite yet.
Elon Musk learned with the issues with Tesla that there are times to keep quiet. Most important is that Elon stated in questions he heard they would get the license soon. Given the FAA’s track record with issuing licenses to Mojave and Georgia it is very likely they will give him at least permission to go on test flying.
Again, you are thinking the Old Space way expecting him to wait until the Raptor 2 are ready when he will be able to get useful data flying with the Raptor 1 on the Super Booster, especially since both vehicles are going to land in the ocean if they survive.
Well, that’s the old agreement, test flights of new vehicles were going to be allowed. The only permitted regular flights were of Falcons.
I’m not thinking ‘the old way’ I said in my post I’m ready to believe a expended flight is in the cards, what I’m saying is SpaceX seems to be changing their flight plans from day to day. That shows a lot of instability in getting a system flight ready. That a vehicle will be permitted to fly at such a scale and with design changes and vehicle subsystems changing on the fly like this shows nobody is operating using old methods anymore.
Yes, driving vehicle development by experimentation, just like Robert Stephenson, Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers. It’s how real progress is made!
One does wonder if SpaceX might have been better served trying out some of the new approaches with a smaller vehicle. Stainless, heat shielding, catch/stacking arms, Raptors, and other new concepts. Perhaps not, though it would have been interesting to hear the internal discussion.
Personally I think they should have gone larger, along the lines of Robert Truax’s Sea Dragon. Now that would have really kicked open to the door to space development.?
Eventually maybe if the demand develops. For R&D a lot can be learned with simple and smaller, maybe. My concern is hubris of the nature that hit the shuttle program. Too far and fast can be a massive win or massive loss. Betting it all sounds good in the abstract, not so
much though to one that has lost it all a couple of times.
I am not adamant on the issue. I am both hopeful and concerned. We will know over the next couple of years.
They could have started out with a smaller version first, say one designed to delivered 150 tons to LEO. The advantage of course is that launch platforms are no longer needed since the entire ocean is your launch platform. It also eliminates the very complex chopstick landing of the booster.
My point is that whatever size they end up with for a fleet vehicle, smaller often can retire the risks faster and cheaper that trying to go full size operational on the first pass. A half a dozen or so new things are going into this vehicle, much risk of which might have been retired with a lessor vehicle. A Raptor medium 9 in the same pattern as the Falcon 9 could possibly have been to orbit last year. Just as the Falcon 1 retired much of the risk for the Falcon 9.
Almost certainly wouldn’t be involved in the same level of environmental regulatory hassles at the moment. And logistics early on are critical. Just because the structural rockets as built are dirt cheap by ordinary standards doesn’t mean that the whole process is that cheap.
There are possibly very good reasons why this approach wasn’t tried. That would be internal SpaceX information that I’m not privy to. From previous minor involvement in the field, I believe that a fast agile RLV could eat the lunch of a large one with limited options.
If the Raptor based Stainless Steel rocket with can hit good price points in the large, it seems likely that it could hit the same point in the medium (9 engine booster) while building flight history on the various new concepts. If it could hit 20 tons for $10M and turnaround weekly, then Starlink could be emplaced with a very small fleet in under a year. The mistakes and misconceptions made on the one could be corrected building the large.
If I’m wrong, we will know in a fairly short time frame if Starship has a relatively trouble free development. If I’m right, an innovative competitor could eat Elons’ lunch.