Astra's Secret Rocket Project Finally Reveals Itself

About 18 Months ago I covered Astra, a small rocket startup based only a few miles from my home. They were still a 'Stealth' company, and would not publicly acknowledge what they were doing, even after a pair of suborbital tests which failed due to engine problems. However they're now speaking publicly, and making a lot of noise about their smallsat launcher and their first orbital launch attempt only a few days from now.

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Here's my original video from 2018

[regulatormachine]

'something happens in space news' - wait until Scott Manley makes a report about it so I can enjoy the best coverage, best editing, and most accurate information, thanks again Scott!

[petermartinverduyn]

@1:30 ‘the smart people’

Shows a comment from himself speculating 😂

[teaser]

2:15 THE rocket has A NAME: IT'S 1 OF 3...
OH god it's a BORG rocket...

[gonufc]

5:46 - Not a good hairstyle for a job that requires headphones....

[Elsuntan]

Thanks for bringing such high quality news about the industry and the effort you put in to the videos.

[mplaw]

Very cool, wish I'd thought of going into the space business, when I was a high school lad, we managed to launch a small payload 4 miles high. Had we staged our liquid propellant rocket and our solid propellant rocket we could have done much better than 4 miles. Rocket "safety officer" meaning Dad, did not permit us to go any higher. Not after the NY State police showed up after we launched one of our high powered amateur rockets out over Lake Ontario. Dad lost his nerve to push the envelope. The police were not wise to what we done as they responded to a citizen complaint that saw a fireball heading out over the lake moving at high speed and they also heard the rocket breaking the sound barrier as the thrust tapered off close to burnout. We were using spun fiberglass and spun carbon fiber tubing and graphite ceramic nozzles in 1969 long before carbon fiber was as common as today. A neighbor was an engineer for Spaulding Fibre in Western NY and we had bits and pieces tubing to our specs and tech data on their experimental tubing. Low carbon steel had been our material, much safer with composites than steel and easier to work with, pouring 2 part epoxy resins and inserting carbon/ceramic nozzles. Our liquid fuel rocket had a stainless steel un-cooled combustion chamber and nozzle and the tanks were made of aluminium and pressurized with dry ice. The oxidizer was nitric acid and the fuel was an 80/20 mix of turpentine and furfuryl alcohol. Static tested a couple of times to find minimum furfuryl that gave reliable ignition, flown once, the parachute failed. The Isp of about 240 seconds only a little higher than our solid propellants about 220 seconds. Great fun, I did the math and design, my shop skilled buddy did the machining with the help of his shop teacher. Great fun ... learned a lot. Neighbor on one side of us worked for the fibre company and on the other side of my parents house another engineer for Bell Aerospace and assigned to the RM-81 Agena B in the 1960's. I had plenty of expert help, learned how to do stress / strain calculations along with Algebra 2 and Trig for the NY Reagents exam. If anything school math was neglected during a wild construction project. I still crammed and passed the reagents at the end of the school year. A month after school let out Armstrong landed on the Moon, I felt let down, I know how the Soviets must have felt we both lost the space race.

[deusexaethera]

Scott: "stealth rocket..."
Me: "A stealth rocket? How is that possible? You can't shroud the thermal or optical signature of rocket exhaust, it's too hot!"
Scott: "...startup"
Me: "...oh, only the _company_ is stealthy. Well, that makes more sense, but is also significantly less awesome."

[alphaadhito]

Alameda... hmm I wonder if this is the succesor of Mythbusters Confederate rocket

[homairi]

This launch table looks like one designed for V2.

[andyalder]

Split my sides at Arce Soars, haven't laughed as much since Randy Bender's presentation for NetWare.

[christopherpardell]

I loved the shot of the forklift pulling out a tan metal enclosure with the words “Rocket Support Cart” stenciled on the side... while in the background is a matching metal enclosure stenciled with the label “Dish Rack”. Couldn’t help but imagine it was full of dinner plates.

[ansidrop]

I love this! All the competition starting to heat up! All these new companies being able to service what the government abandoned due to cost! Lets get these guys off the ground and start deploying sat's! Great vid man.

[lakak]

Should be called The Borg Rocket as it uses the Borg naming system One of Three! 🚀 of 🚀🚀🚀 (Seven of Nine)

[bichaelf]

Congratulations on 1 million subs Scott. Been here since Eve or bust. So happy to see you reach this milestone.

[endcraftable]

7:50
I see you are a space wizard of culture as well

[Jcewazhere]

So they could conceivably have a rocket called Seven of Nine? Yay :D

[hawk]

so basically, the military is doing an experiment to see how long it takes to develop a balistic missile?

[AdamosDad]

"Astra's Secret Rocket" sounds like a sex to my cousin and I saw downtown Cincinnati back in the early 60's

[DARisse-jiyw]

Give it red fairings !
I miss the Brit "lipstick" rocket ....

[robertregalado]

thank you for posting mr. Manly
out of all the space posting channels on YouTube I did not know about this one thank you