Astra ships next rocket to Alaska for launch
Capitalism in space: The smallsat startup Astra has shipped its next test rocket to Kodiak, Alaska, for its planned six-day launch window, beginning on August 2nd.
The new two-stage launch vehicle, which the company calls Rocket 3.1, will take off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island. While the liquid-fueled rocket is designed to reach orbit, Astra says it will consider the test flight a success even it doesn’t enter orbit. “Success for this flight means we accomplish enough to make orbit within three flights, which we have defined as at least achieving a nominal first stage burn,” Astra said in June.
Chris Kemp, Astra’s co-founder and CEO, said the company will not be providing a live video stream of the launch to the public, but will release video imagery of the flight after it occurs. “We do not yet employ production, marketing, or communications folks, so our ability to produce a public webcast is limited,” Kemp said in response to questions from Spaceflight Now. “We are focusing all resources on engineering so that we can reach orbit in the next couple of flights.”
The August 2nd launch date is about two weeks later than they had announced in mid-June, but such a delay is not unreasonable for such a rocket test program.
They had attempted to launch an earlier rocket in March, only to have something go wrong during countdown.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: The smallsat startup Astra has shipped its next test rocket to Kodiak, Alaska, for its planned six-day launch window, beginning on August 2nd.
The new two-stage launch vehicle, which the company calls Rocket 3.1, will take off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island. While the liquid-fueled rocket is designed to reach orbit, Astra says it will consider the test flight a success even it doesn’t enter orbit. “Success for this flight means we accomplish enough to make orbit within three flights, which we have defined as at least achieving a nominal first stage burn,” Astra said in June.
Chris Kemp, Astra’s co-founder and CEO, said the company will not be providing a live video stream of the launch to the public, but will release video imagery of the flight after it occurs. “We do not yet employ production, marketing, or communications folks, so our ability to produce a public webcast is limited,” Kemp said in response to questions from Spaceflight Now. “We are focusing all resources on engineering so that we can reach orbit in the next couple of flights.”
The August 2nd launch date is about two weeks later than they had announced in mid-June, but such a delay is not unreasonable for such a rocket test program.
They had attempted to launch an earlier rocket in March, only to have something go wrong during countdown.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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