Astra Space Rocket Launch Fails Again, Two NASA TROPICS Satellites Lost
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
The second stage of an Astra Space Rocket 3.3 rocket failed less than a minute before planned shutdown on Sunday, sending two NASA TROPICS mission satellites plunging into the atmosphere instead of entering orbit.
On board video showed a sudden flash in the second-stage Aether engine at 7 minutes 21 seconds into the flight before the stage appeared to slowly tumble out of control. Astra Space confirmed in a Tweet that the Aether engine had shut down prematurely. The company said the rocket’s first stage, powered by five Delphin engines, performed as designed after liftoff from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
TROPICS, which stands for Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats, was designed as a constellation of six satellites focused on studying tropical cyclones. Astra had been scheduled to launch four other TROPICS satellites on two launches later this year. Those launches will be delayed while a launch failure investigation is conducted.
“Despite a loss of the first two of six satellites, the TROPICS constellation will still meet its science objectives with the four remaining CubeSats distributed in two orbits. With four satellites, TROPICS will still provide improved time-resolved observations of tropical cyclones compared to traditional observing methods,” NASA said in a press release.
Astra Space’s launch record slumped to two successes, five failures and an additional booster destroyed on the launch pad by a fire. The company flew two suborbital flight tests that the company declared a success but outsiders have judged to be a failure.
It was Astra Space’s second failure to launch a NASA funded mission in as many attempts. In February, Rocket 3.3 failed to orbit four CubeSats whose launch was funded under the space agency’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program, which orbits spacecraft built by university students.
Astra’s stock closed at $2.02 on Friday, later rising to $2.14 in after-hours trading. Astra is one of a number of companies that went public after being acquired with a special purpose acquisition company, a so-called “blank check” company that was already publicly traded whose only goal was to take another firm public.
12 responses to “Astra Space Rocket Launch Fails Again, Two NASA TROPICS Satellites Lost”
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A good looking start, but lost it in the clubhouse turn. No joy in Alameda this day.
Yep. Went pretty much as predicted.
http://parabolicarc.com/202…
Guys need to get acquired by someone in aerospace industry with functioning processes and QC real fast. Raytheon or Maxar maybe.
New launch vehicles are expected to have teething problems. But at some point they need to smooth things out, preferably quickly, though the unexpected can still show up later.
Even so, Astra’s record is abysmal compared to their competitors. If I was looking for a small-sat launcher today, I’d be looking for reliability well ahead of price.
The most reliable and cheapest smallsat launch provider is the folks from Hawthorne. The new small orbital launchers don’t appear to be competitive versus them. Including RocketLab, hence the Neutron medium orbital launcher. Which is similar to the more capable variants of the Delta II. Astra Space is already switching to the bigger Rocket 4.0 medium orbital launcher as well, so the failures of Rockert 3.3 will be paper over if the follow on Rocket 4.0 is successful.
True enough, if price and reliability are your only considerations. Rocketlab seems to be earning plenty of launch orders though.
I am not optimistic about Rocket 4.0. Maybe the new design will solve a lot of their issues – if they are just design issues.
The problem is that as public stock every time this happens it’s value fall as normal investors are not very tolerant of the risk it takes to develop a launch system.
This practice of putting paying loads on development launch vehicles is just plain stupidity.
Doesn’t hurt much when you are just burning other people’s money.
It’s down 24% at the moment.
Yes. that use to be the process followed before the SPACs fad. But space firms tend to be run by engineers who often make let their search for funding for their tech goals blind them when making good business decisions.
Deep Space Industries, Planetary Resources, Rocket Racing League and XCOR are good examples of firms being so focused on their tech goals they pass up numerous opportunities to generate cash flow.
Maybe less Pride and more engineering?
http://newspaceeconomy.ca/2…