What Has Led Astra To Its Current Situation & Plans For The Future

Astra Space was founded not long ago in late 2016. Since then the company has had a lot of ups and downs in the form of progress, missions, launch vehicles, and more. Now in 2022, the company is shifting not only its launch vehicle but the various services they provide. All of which in an effort to turn the company around and begin consistently launching and supporting payloads in orbit.

We recently watched the TROPICS mission and the loss of the rocket and payload. While the exact report for this mission has still not been released, soon after the unsuccessful result, they announced the cancellation of the Rocket 3 line and the future of Launch Vehicle 2.0. This comes in addition to more focus on products such as spacecraft engines, and other various space systems.

However, it’s important to point out that a lot has led up to the current state of Astra and why exactly they are making certain decisions. This includes initial launch results, goals for launch cadence, cost, mobility, and rocket development, just to name a few. Here I will go more in-depth into the timeline of Astra, what has led them to where they are now, the company’s plan going forward, and more.

Credit:

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:02 - Astra Timeline
5:04 - Future Plan

[drds]

This is the first SpaceBucket video that didn't feel like the script was copy and pasted from the respective companies marketing departments and press releases! It's really good. I also really like this new narrator much more than that other guy. Please keep this up and I will watch more of your content!

Anyways, back to Astra... They are going to go bankrupt at their current rate. I don't know how their customers believe in them at this point after 5 failed orbital attempts, blowing up 2 NASA payloads, 1 DoD payload and then their brilliant move to cancel Rocket 3.0 (that had paying customers waiting to fly), and moving them all over to Rocket 4.0. A bigger rocket that is still in development (based on their glorious Rocket 3.0) with a NET launch date of 2023 that will probably not fly until at least 2024, if ever. Not to mention there are a couple class action lawsuits in the works against them.

Kemp is nothing but a hype man and at worse a conman. Some say the same about Elon (it's true that he hypes things up like no other) but at least he (and his teams) eventually produce a working product and can get to orbit reliably and safely.

[paulcarter]

That 'fastest company to launch' is misleading hype: their time to launch has been much the same as other rocket companies given their earlier rocket research under the company name Ventions.

[GntlTch]

Crossing wires tells me that they didn't spec a polarized connector - a basic failure in quality control.There was another example (that I can't remember), of poor quality control. Not a good sign for survivability as a company.