- Joined
- 21 January 2015
- Messages
- 11,536
- Reaction score
- 14,782
Couldn’t find an existing thread for them.
Here’s their website:
Here’s their website:
Last edited:
Couldn’t find an existing thread for them.
Here’s their website:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/02/...ra-gearing-up-for-orbital-launch-from-alaska/Fresh out of stealth mode, Astra gearing up for orbital launch from Alaska
Some time in the next few days, a California-based company that has quietly toiled to develop a new light-class satellite launcher since 2016 will attempt to send three CubeSats into orbit from Kodiak Island, Alaska, on the first of two missions scheduled before the end of March to win up to $12 million in prize money from the U.S. military.
Astra’s next small satellite launcher has shipped to Kodiak Island in Alaska for final preparations ahead of a test flight planned in early August, five months after the company’s first orbital rocket faltered before getting off the ground.
You're thinking an abort sequence might have accidentally partially triggered or some such?
"Space may be hard, but like this rocket, we are not giving up."
Astra rocket launch failure traced to issues with payload fairing, software
The company aims to fly again soon after the February 2022 failure.www.space.com
Astra rocket launch failure traced to issues with payload fairing, software
The company aims to fly again soon after the February 2022 failure.www.space.com
I wonder how the payload fairing managed to get stuck on the rocket they are supposed to separate without trouble. Let’s hope that the next rocket is more successful
"The separation mechanisms (our fairing has five of these) were fired in an incorrect order, which resulted in off-nominal movement of the fairing that caused an electrical disconnection," Griggs wrote. "Due to the disconnection, the last separation mechanism never received its command to open, which prevented the fairing from separating completely before upper-stage ignition."
The firing order was wrong because an engineering diagram had been drawn incorrectly, Griggs added.