FAILURE: Astra Rocket 3.3 – STP-27AD1 – Kodiak – August 28, 2021 (22:35 UTC)

[JEF_300]

No they can certainly gimbal in all directions.

Not that they need to of course. 1-axis of gimbal on a ring of only 3 engines would be enough to give you full control. It's just as possible with a ring of 5, although I imagine the TVC programming would be pretty annoying.

And not resilient to an engine out worth a damn!

Plenty resilient on the TVC front. In principle you could lose 3 engines and still have total control in every axis. The programming would be a nightmare, and your control margins will still be tiny, but in terms of the physics it's an option.

[LouScheffer]

Plenty resilient on the TVC front. In principle you could lose 3 engines and still have total control in every axis. The programming would be a nightmare, and your control margins will still be tiny, but in terms of the physics it's an option.

The programming should be much easier then the all-engines available case.  You have two vectors you can choose, and they need to sum to a third vector.  There's no ambiguity - it's two equations in two unknowns.   In the regular case, you have many more variables than you need, and you have to pick one solution among many, optimizing for other constraints.  It's a much harder math problem.

[FlatFootShift]

Any update on when a next launch is being planned for?

[TrevorMonty]

Its little details that matter, like engines that run till MECO.

https://twitter.com/Astra/status/1435987623902842883?s=19

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk

[edkyle99]

Firefly has kept the public informed about the broad path of its early-engine-shut-down investigation.  Anything from Astra on its somewhat similar issue?

 - Ed Kyle

[harrystranger]

Imagery from Sentinel-2 shows the scar left by Rocket 3.3 as it did it's slide off of the pad. Comparison in the gif attached below 
Measured to be ~80m long.

[Comga]

So Firefly got up 50,000 ft without getting offshore and Astra got offshore without gaining any altitude.

We could suggest they collaborate but the combination might be a pad explosion.

[Chris Bergin]

https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1447910039751208962