Astra Launch of NASA-Sponsored Cubesats Fails (spacenews.com) 21
The first operational launch of Astra's Rocket 3.3 vehicle failed Feb. 10 when the rocket's upper stage appeared to tumble out of control after stage separation. SpaceNews reports: The rocket, designated LV0008 by Astra, lifted off from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 3 p.m. Eastern. The launch suffered several days of delays because of a range issue as well as a last-second scrub during the previous launch attempt Feb. 7. However, onboard video of the vehicle showed the upper stage tumbling shortly after separation from the first stage, three minutes after liftoff. The video suggests a potential issue with the separation of the payload fairing, which, according to a mission timeline provided by the company, takes place seconds before stage separation.
This was the fifth orbital launch attempt by Astra of its Rocket 3 vehicle. The first three launches, from September 2020 through August 2021, all failed to reach orbit. The fourth, in November 2021, did reach orbit but did not carry a satellite payload. This launch was carrying four NASA-sponsored cubesats on a mission called Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) 41 by NASA. The agency awarded Astra a $3.9 million contract in December 2020 for the launch through its Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) Demo 2 competition. "An issue has been experienced during flight that prevented the delivery of our customer payloads to orbit today. We are deeply sorry to our customers," said Carolina Grossman, director of product management at Astra, during the launch webcast. The company did not disclose any additional information about the failure. "I'm with the team looking at data, and we will provide more info as soon as we can," Chris Kemp, chief executive of Astra, tweeted minutes after the failure.
This was the fifth orbital launch attempt by Astra of its Rocket 3 vehicle. The first three launches, from September 2020 through August 2021, all failed to reach orbit. The fourth, in November 2021, did reach orbit but did not carry a satellite payload. This launch was carrying four NASA-sponsored cubesats on a mission called Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) 41 by NASA. The agency awarded Astra a $3.9 million contract in December 2020 for the launch through its Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) Demo 2 competition. "An issue has been experienced during flight that prevented the delivery of our customer payloads to orbit today. We are deeply sorry to our customers," said Carolina Grossman, director of product management at Astra, during the launch webcast. The company did not disclose any additional information about the failure. "I'm with the team looking at data, and we will provide more info as soon as we can," Chris Kemp, chief executive of Astra, tweeted minutes after the failure.
It does still seem to be rocket science. (Score:3)
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Stage separation issue? (Score:4, Informative)
Judging by the live video feed, it looks like the stage separation didn't go right. The two halves appeared to start to separate and shift, and then get "stuck" for a few seconds. Then when they came apart the second stage was tumbling. At least I've never seen a stage separation happen in that kind of way where they come apart a little bit, stop separating, then a few seconds later release the rest of the way.
Improvement. (Score:3)
I see this as progress. Previously they didn't reach the point of separation.
1) build working propulsion system - done
2) build stage one of rocket that reaches separation point - done (new)
3) build stage two of rocket that reaches target window - incomplete
4) deploy payload into stable orbit - incomplete
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The educational cubesats probably are worth very little relative to the cost of launching them anyways, but it creates expectations of an operational launch.
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So we know the features are incomplete as opposed to being stubs to be implemented in a future release?
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This list is not quite correct: the second stage of LV0007 that launched last year did separate correctly and reached the intended orbit. So pretty much everything on the rocket itself was tested and worked correctly at least once.
The only step not fully tested was 4) payload deployment, since deploying a dummy payload would just create useless space debris. Instead, the dummy just had a green light pointed at the camera, indicating reception of the deployment signal.
If the fairing separated correctly in th
Non Ad Astra (Score:3)
Sad, but this reality show is way more interesting than the movie ...
Sorry to hear it. (Score:2)
Sorry to hear it. It's a cliché, but yes, space is hard. The successes come not from people who never fail, but from the people who learn from their mistakes and keep trying.
SpaceX failed their first three launches, too.
"Failed to reach orbit? Shoulda used SpaceX." (Score:2)
The only devices we de-orbit are our own.
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That had nothing to do with their rockets. Apparently they may need to rethink how much propellant they put on each Starlink satellite or drop them in a higher idling orbit.
This sucks (Score:1)
I really like SpaceX as a company, but I want to see all space companies succeed so I am really sad to hear about this...
Can the company remain viable much longer with this many failed launches? It seems like companies have more leeway for funding since SpaceX has shown you can have commercial success with space launches, but even so that is a lot of launch failures.
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Somebody above mentioned that Spacex's first three launches also failed, so I looked it up. Apparently that's true, and the article mentioned this bit of info:
"This third failure almost killed the company. It was saved—just a day after the crash—by billionaire Peter Thiel, the company’s first outside investor."
So, while that doesn't really answer your question, with each failure they probably learn more than if it was successful.
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When they went public last year, they raised around $450M. According to their plans, they should have enough funds until 2025. Although I remember some of their critics say they burn through the cash too quickly and may only have enough for 2 years.
Given that the previous launch in November 2021 was a success, Rocket 3.3 is pretty much finished and can start bringing them some revenue (after they make sure the fairing separation problem does not repeat). The launch cost is only around $3M, so I assume most
Space debris (Score:1)
So what happens to this (now) piece of junk?
Will it endanger other satellites, or will it fall uncontrollably down and endanger everyone in its path?
Re:Space debris (Score:5, Informative)
Um... you DO realize that this is the main reason why Cape Canaveral is located where it is, why launches occur at least slightly towards the east, and why there's an exclusion zone in the ocean east of Cape Canaveral during launches (and why SpaceX was forced to scrub a launch last week due to a Royal Caribbean cruise ship sailing into it and being unable/unwilling to vacate the area in time to allow the launch to proceed). They want to ensure that if (ahem) "rapid unplanned disassembly" occurs, the pieces will fall harmlessly into the Atlantic Ocean.
Put another way, they actively make sure there won't BE anybody to endanger IN its path.
Rockets also contain explosives that can and will be detonated if something goes wrong and the rocket veers back towards Florida. Assuming I'm remembering things correctly, this was actually a point of serious disagreement & friction between SpaceX and NASA during Crew Dragon's development. In the opinions of Musk and SpaceX in general, NASA's official standards were murderously "trigger happy" when it came to sacrificing crewmembers' lives during a Challenger-type launch failure (partly, because its own culture tended to view such events as "hopelessly unsurvivable" anyway, and regarded it simply as part of the risk accepted by astronauts), and Dragon's launch sequence tried a little harder to save crew lives & postponed the ultimate self-destruct sequence longer than NASA's official standards allowed. Eventually, NASA accepted SpaceX's arguments, and Dragon's safer (for the crew) system was allowed to remain.
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Well played. You answered this clown and their false dichotomy as if they were simply ignorant rather than a fool, and added further interesting info for context. Unfortunately, since they're AC, they will continue to be ignorant *and* foolish.