Astra’s first orbital mission landed, but it soon came down again.
The California-based spaceflight startup made its debut First orbital test flight Tonight (Sept. 11), to launch its two-stage rocket 1.1 into the sky from Alaska’s Pacific Spaceport Complex, at 11.30pm EDT (A: 30 local Alaskan time and Sept. 3.2018 GMT).
The 38-foot-tall (12 m) booster, which had no payload, did not make it all the way to the final boundary.
“Successfully took off and flew, but the flight ended during the first stage burn. It looks like we got a good flight time. More improvements are coming!” Astra tweeted tonight.
Related: History of rockets
Leaving the pad, the rocket shot 1.1! pic.twitter.com/g8uo6N2HQwSeptember 12, 2020
The failure was no shock; Debut flights rarely go swimming, and Astra has made it clear that it does not expect perfection from this. Inside prelaunch mission description, Company representatives wrote that the primary objective was to achieve a negligible first phase burn, which would keep Astra on the road to reach orbit within three flights.
That didn’t happen, but it looks like the company will still have enough data to analyze before the next attempt. And the Astra still aims to get into orbit in three or fewer attempts.
“We are excited to make the first progress in our three attempts at orbit! We are incredibly proud of our team; we will review the data, make changes and launch Rocket 3..૨, which is almost complete,” Astra wrote. Another tweet Tonight.
We are excited to see a lot of progress in the first three attempts on our way to orbit! We are incredibly proud of our team; We will review the data, make changes and launch Rocket 2.2, which is almost complete.September 12, 2020
Astra plans to offer cost-effective, dedicated rides in space for smaller satellites, which are becoming increasingly capable. The company’s website currently provides for load payloads weighing 10 kilograms in orbits of 1010 miles (kilometers00 kilometers) and 330 kilograms (50 to 150 kilograms).
Another California-based company, Rocket Lab, is proud of this side of the growing Smaltset launch market at the moment, but Astra thinks it can make a big place for itself by offering a cheaper alternative.
“What we’re trying to do is build a service that is low cost to operate and low cost to provide a launch service,” Astra CEO Chris Kempe told reporters on July 30 during a teleconference. Cheap rocket, a very automated factory, a highly automated launching operation and, indeed, to focus on efficiency and eliminate costs from every aspect of service so that we can reduce costs by scale and economy of production and ultimately. “
(SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets and other large boosters are increasingly advancing even smaller spacecraft, but usually as piggyback “riders” whose main purpose is to launch one or more large satellites into orbit. Rocket Labs provide dedicated rides for smaller satellites. Does, plans to do as well as Astra.)
Thank you, @elonmusk. We appreciate it and are encouraged by the progress we have made today in our first flights to orbit https://t.co/CrH8iBYNpS.September 12, 2020
As part of the Ra 12 Million DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) launch challenge, Astra initially planned to launch its first orbital mission in February or March this year. But bad weather and technical problems with Rocket 3.0, the booster is scheduled to make that flight, Stopped the company Meeting the narrow launch window of the competition.
The rocket was damaged in late March while preparing for other launching efforts that were not associated with the launch RPA Launch Challenge. So the orbital-liftoff milestone fell on its successor rocket 1.1. Bad weather and technical problems delayed Rocket 3.1’s flight several times until tonight.
Tonight’s launch was the third overall for Astra, which attempted subrobital flights in 2018 with two previous rocket iterations.
Mike W. Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book about the quest for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @Mamildld. Follow us on Twitter @speed.com or Facebook.
