Astra launch fails when upper stage starts tumbling after stage separation
Capitalism in space: Astra’s first attempt to launch from Cape Canaveral and put commercial cubesats in orbit failed today when the upper stage started to tumble immediately after the first stage had separated.
Embedded below is video showing that tumbling. The full replay of the launch live stream can be viewed here.
The silver lining of this failure is that the first stage and all launch operations appeared to function perfectly, right up until after stage separation. Nonetheless, it is a failure, and the company will need to try again and succeed if it wants to survive in the aggressive new launch market.
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Capitalism in space: Astra’s first attempt to launch from Cape Canaveral and put commercial cubesats in orbit failed today when the upper stage started to tumble immediately after the first stage had separated.
Embedded below is video showing that tumbling. The full replay of the launch live stream can be viewed here.
The silver lining of this failure is that the first stage and all launch operations appeared to function perfectly, right up until after stage separation. Nonetheless, it is a failure, and the company will need to try again and succeed if it wants to survive in the aggressive new launch market.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
For me it looks like this: The payload fairing (which also houses the second stage) did not open at the scheduled time and the second stage got stuck (which you can clearly see) until the two halves of the payload drove away with a delay. I felt like the second stage fired before the payload fairing was gone. This failed process caused the stage to tip over and to rotate aorund is transverse axis, which the control system was unable to correct.
At least 53,000 were watching the “NASASpaceflight” channel by launch time. ASTR stock reacted to the failure by setting an all time low.
Addition: It also appeared that the fairing halves were blown away by the engine gases. An addition in another respect: As you could see: The personnel effort to launch such a small rocket hardly differs from that of a much larger launch vehicle, which entails considerable cost disadvantages per kilogram of payload weight. This makes me very skeptical about the future of these very small launchers.
True, but Delta II had a lot of people fooled for many years on that subject.
It and it’s Thor parents from the USAF was our crutch of a national rocket. It was the face of Goldin’s “Faster Better Cheaper” mantra.
Delta II-more than SLS trying to get Apollo mojo back-it was that bloody menthol cigarette looking crutch JPL chain-smoked after Goldin handed them out like lollypops…that’s what held America back!
Ugh!!.
I HATED THAT ROCKET!
Failure details:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLfl6ADRyu0
Willi-
Excellent Scott Manley stuff!
Wayne: Not much more info from Manley this time, as we discussed above.
Regarding Astra: The company should perhaps consider abandoning this particular rocket design and using their real world experience now to make a leap to a much larger and more capable launch vehicle.
Thor is a sore point. It was the fastest missile development in history, because the idea the USAF might be forced to use the Army developed Jupiter (essentially an extrapolation of Redstone and was way ahead) was totally beyond the pale. So, the US poured money into two duplicate programs instead of deciding on one or the other AND the boyz in blue were forced to use Jupiter anyway – hating it. Oh, Jupiter was a semi-mobile system, Thor was sunk in concrete. Which was more survivable?
Ellie in Space: “The evolution of SpaceTuber Scott Manley”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49FPVDneMG8
My proposal: Astra should now seriously consider merging with Firefly. Astra still has a lot of money from the IPO that they could bring into the company association. The first step, namely the adoption of Firefly’s superior engine technology, has already been taken.