Astra Space

[TrevorMonty]

There is neither a commercial market nor a scientific market for responsive launch.

Things that cost time almost always cost money too so commercial pressures to cut costs will probably get commercial launch 98% of the way to responsive launch. Once Starship and Nova are launching every day with full reuse they can probably tweak their processes to provide responsive launch too. The bottleneck to responsive launch is likely to be the FAA and the ranges, not things under launch company control.

Rideshare is of no use if its going to wrong orbit.
If trying  rendezvous with suspicious satellite as Victus Haze mission will demostrate, an instantaneous launch would be ideal.

[trimeta]

There is neither a commercial market nor a scientific market for responsive launch.

Things that cost time almost always cost money too so commercial pressures to cut costs will probably get commercial launch 98% of the way to responsive launch. Once Starship and Nova are launching every day with full reuse they can probably tweak their processes to provide responsive launch too. The bottleneck to responsive launch is likely to be the FAA and the ranges, not things under launch company control.

Rideshare is of no use if its going to wrong orbit.
If trying  rendezvous with suspicious satellite as Victus Haze mission will demostrate, an instantaneous launch would be ideal.

VICTUS HAZE does, however, demonstrate that "responsive launch" doesn't automatically imply "responsive launch from any arbitrary patch of asphalt that faces the ocean." It also demonstrates that the US already has two responsive launch companies (since it's comprised of two separate launches from two different companies).

[deltaV]

Astra has the worst record in the current US launch industry: 7 failures out of 9 attempts. Companies that can't do their job well are supposed to go bankrupt, not be bailed out by the government.

[russianhalo117]

You leave out Astra's predecessor DARPA programmes where the company was partially the cause of cancellation.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/astra/status/1851983082318090549

What is better than one Astra Spacecraft Engine? 

A dual Astra Spacecraft Engine test fire in our test chamber. This vacuum chamber is like a mini version of outer space on Earth, simulating the environments that these thrusters experience on orbit.

[edkyle99]

Astra has the worst record in the current US launch industry: 7 failures out of 9 attempts. Companies that can't do their job well are supposed to go bankrupt, not be bailed out by the government.

Astra's Rocket 3.3, its operational orbital launcher that started flying in 2021, succeeded two times in five attempts.  Not great, but the same result as Firefly Alpha and SpaceX Falcon 1, companies that nonetheless receive(d) government funding. 

 - Ed Kyle

[pilottim]

Astra has the worst record in the current US launch industry: 7 failures out of 9 attempts. Companies that can't do their job well are supposed to go bankrupt, not be bailed out by the government.

44 million isn't going to save the company. The intent is supporting local machine shops in an area that used to be industrialized but has since fallen behind. DIU is very SV aligned and wants to go hard into "deep tech", whatever that really means. Neither the government nor machine shops care about if Astra "deserves" to go bankrupt.

You leave out Astra's predecessor DARPA programmes where the company was partially the cause of cancellation.

I disagree, but that's not my story to tell. At the end of the day, despite Astra's problems the SALVO/Rocket family has flown 9 more times than ALASA.

Things that cost time almost always cost money too so commercial pressures to cut costs will probably get commercial launch 98% of the way to responsive launch. Once Starship and Nova are launching every day with full reuse they can probably tweak their processes to provide responsive launch too.

The government has been reliant on VCs to fund their rapid response solutions for over a decade and no one has quite turned up a solution that the government likes. Turns out maintaining rapid response mobile launch crew is expensive for almost no additional revenue. I highly doubt this effort will be successful, regardless. But it is an open challenge. IMO you probably need to return to the original SALVO setup of a fully government controlled program, but there's no budget for that in this environment. Starship and Nova could have bid on this but they did not.

The bottleneck to responsive launch is likely to be the FAA and the ranges, not things under launch company control.

Astra/Ventions has went through both government launch licenses and commercial licenses. The "intent" of these kind of challenges is to prove things out under commercial licenses (with copious amount of private funding to lessen govt burden) before govt buy in.

[brussell]

Astra has the worst record in the current US launch industry: 7 failures out of 9 attempts. Companies that can't do their job well are supposed to go bankrupt, not be bailed out by the government.

Ridiculous. Any company that has 0 out n is worse. Plenty of those (ABL, Relativity, etc.)

[brussell]

What are you talking about? What "government manager", "government side", and "government handholding"? This is ridiculous. Can people just show up here and make stuff up with no bearing in reality?

This very thread listed the NASA contract R3 was developed under on the first page. People often make the mistake of analyzing R3 as something that was born out of the tech NewSpace ZIRP startup boom and makes no market sense because it is not reliable. I disagree with this framing. The requirements were made to meet some government goals. Rapid response, being cheap as possible, fits in a container, and only launching 25kg to orbit is terrible for the market but great for the government. Their mistake was assuming that there is a commercial market for what was really only of interest to the government. Rumor has it that, after SALVO ran out of funding, Chris Kemp camp out of the Ventions garage and would not leave until Adam London agreed to continue the program with him as the CEO and lots of private funding. Vance's book hinted at this but I don't know for sure if it happened. Personally I think R3 was a great comeback story, because space development programs cancelled by the government usually stays dead and not go to orbit. Time will tell if Astra gets another comeback story.

This is all very nice but it doesn't address the question of what you meant by "government manager", "government side", and "government handholding". Do you mean the requirements? Because the government surely had zero input into the design and development.

[pilottim]

This is all very nice but it doesn't address the question of what you meant by "government manager", "government side", and "government handholding".

Exactly what it says. Kemp likes to hide their past and siloed most of the company away, until they want to ask for a lease extension from the city council or another government contract, in which case Astra has been working on maturing NASA technology for over ten years, always has been.

Do you mean the requirements? Because the government surely had zero input into the design and development.

More than a purely commercial rocket, less than SLS.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Astra has the worst record in the current US launch industry: 7 failures out of 9 attempts. Companies that can't do their job well are supposed to go bankrupt, not be bailed out by the government.

Astra's Rocket 3.3, its operational orbital launcher that started flying in 2021, succeeded two times in five attempts.  Not great, but the same result as Firefly Alpha and SpaceX Falcon 1, companies that nonetheless receive(d) government funding. 

 - Ed Kyle

It really depends on how much changes were made between these 5 (originally 7) from the later batches and the 3 ones for the DARPA Launch Challenge, of which 1 burned down on the pad and 2 failed early in flight.
The original 2 sub-orbital demonstrators (Rocket 1/2) both failed as well.

[brussell]

This is all very nice but it doesn't address the question of what you meant by "government manager", "government side", and "government handholding".

Exactly what it says. Kemp likes to hide their past and siloed most of the company away, until they want to ask for a lease extension from the city council or another government contract, in which case Astra has been working on maturing NASA technology for over ten years, always has been.

Do you mean the requirements? Because the government surely had zero input into the design and development.

More than a purely commercial rocket, less than SLS.

Again, this is just false. There was no input from the government besides requirements.

[PM3]

Funding for Rocket 4 development: Astra sells rocket beer in Germany.