{"id":10821,"date":"2021-11-23T01:00:15","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T17:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/astra-reaches-orbit-for-first-time-clearing-way-for-commercial-launches\/"},"modified":"2021-11-23T01:00:15","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T17:00:15","slug":"astra-reaches-orbit-for-first-time-clearing-way-for-commercial-launches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/astra-reaches-orbit-for-first-time-clearing-way-for-commercial-launches\/","title":{"rendered":"Astra reaches orbit for first time, clearing way for commercial launches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/648472605?h=173b4a2764&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Astra LV0007 Reaches Orbit from Astra on Vimeo.<\/p>\n<p>Astra launched its first rocket into orbit from Alaska early Saturday after falling short on three previous tries, an achievement company officials said will unlock \u201ctremendous demand\u201d for its small satellite launch service.<\/p>\n<p>Company officials did not disclose a scheduled for its next mission in a virtual briefing with reporters Monday. But a NASA official said&nbsp;Astra\u2019s next mission will carry six small CubeSat payloads into orbit for the space agency, and could take off before the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Astra\u2019s rocket, designated Rocket 3.3 or LV0007, launched from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, at 1:16 a.m. EST (0616 GMT) Saturday. Heading south from Kodiak, the 43-foot-tall (13.1-meter), 4.3-foot-wide (1.3-meter) rocket soared high above the Pacific Ocean, then arced downrange to gain speed on the way to orbit.<\/p>\n<p>Liftoff occurred at 9:16 p.m. local time in Alaska, where a lean crew of five Astra engineers and technicians readied the rocket for liftoff in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Five kerosene-fueled Delphin engines, combining to generate 32,500 pounds of sea level thrust, powered the launcher in the first 2 minutes, 50 seconds, of the mission. The first stage jettisoned a few seconds later, followed by separation of the payload shroud on top of the rocket.<\/p>\n<p>A single Aether engine ignited on the second stage to accelerate the rocket to orbital velocity, reaching a speed of more than 17,000 mph (7.61 kilometers per second) at cutoff nearly nine minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n<p>The test flight delivered a non-separating payload to orbit for the U.S. Space Force, which named the mission STP-27AD2. The Space Force considered the launch a demonstration mission to evaluate Astra\u2019s launch capabilities for future military satellites.<\/p>\n<p>Military tracking data showed the rocket reached an orbit between 272 miles and 315 miles (438-by-507 kilometers) in altitude, with an inclination angle of 86 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n<p>Benjamin Lyon, Astra\u2019s chief engineer, called it a \u201cphenomenal flight,\u201d adding that the rocket hit its altitude and inclination targets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a pretty historic milestone for Astra,\u201d said Chris Kemp, Astra\u2019s founder, chairman, and CEO. \u201cJust over five years since we incorporated Astra and started building the facility we\u2019re now in, we were able to learn our way to orbit, as we like to say, launch by launch, increasing the capabilities and operational efficiencies of our system along the way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd we\u2019re now focusing on delivering for our customers and scaling up the production and the launch cadence of our system,\u201d Kemp said.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 2016, Astra designed its rockets to deploy small payloads, pursuing a launch market to deliver CubeSats, nanosatellites, and microsatellites into orbit. With Saturday\u2019s successful flight, Astra reached orbit a little more than five years since its founding, beating the six-year mark from the establishment of SpaceX until its first orbital flight with the Falcon 1 rocket in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Astra officials have said they eventually hope to launch daily, tapping demand from the U.S. military, commercial companies, and scientific institutions to rapidly deploy new space capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>To do that, Astra wants to build rockets on an assembly line at its factory in Alameda, California, then ship the vehicles \u2014 along with required ground infrastructure \u2014 to distant launch sites in standard cargo trailers. A small team with less than a dozen engineers and technicians can set up the rocket and its mobile launch pad at an austere launch site in a few days.<\/p>\n<p>Kemp said the successful launch into orbit proved Astra\u2019s iterative development process, where engineers design, build, and test hardware and software, then rapidly redesign and retest systems if they fail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile it is less expensive for one of these smaller vehicles to fail, it still takes time, and time is money,\u201d Kemp said.<\/p>\n<p>Astra\u2019s first orbit-capable rocket, named Rocket 3.0, was supposed to launch in February 2020 in an effort sponsored by the U.S. military\u2019s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to demonstrate responsive launch capability. But the mission did not get off the ground before DARPA\u2019s deadline after a series of delays.<\/p>\n<p>Astra intended to try again to launch Rocket 3.0, but the vehicle was destroyed in an accident during a wet dress rehearsal, or fueling test, at Kodiak.<\/p>\n<p>Astra\u2019s first orbital launch attempt Sept. 11, 2020, using Rocket 3.1, ended 30 seconds after takeoff when a guidance system problem caused the rocket to drift off course. In response, the rocket\u2019s engines were commanded to shut down and the vehicle fell back to the spaceport on Kodiak Island.<\/p>\n<p>On Dec. 15, 2020, Astra\u2019s Rocket 3.2 nearly achieved enough speed to enter orbit. But the upper stage engine shut down just seconds before it was supposed to cut off, leaving the rocket just shy of orbital velocity. The vehicle re-entered the atmosphere, and most of it burned up.<\/p>\n<p>Rocket 3.3 debuted several changes to Astra\u2019s design when it launched for the first time Aug. 28.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s around 5 feet taller than the rockets Astra used for its first two orbital launch attempts last year. With stretched first stage tanks to hold more propellant, and a lighter second stage, the new rocket configuration can carry heavier cargo into orbit, according to Astra.<\/p>\n<p>Astra also implemented a closed-loop control system on the first Rocket 3.3 mission, also called LV0006, to fix a propellant mixture issue that caused the previous launch last December to fail before seconds before reaching orbit.<\/p>\n<p>The Aug. 28 mission was cut short by the premature shutdown of one of the rocket\u2019s five kerosene-fueled Delphin main engines. The loss of thrust caused the rocket to briefly falter just above the launch pad, then veer sideways before the four remaining engines slowly propelled the vehicle into the sky.<\/p>\n<p>With four of its five engines operating, the rocket\u2019s guidance, navigation, and control system corrected course and tried to compensate for the thrust shortfall. But the vehicle climbed slower than designed.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>After the rocket reached supersonic speed, a range safety officer on the ground issued a flight termination command about two-and-a-half minutes into the flight.<\/p>\n<p>Astra engineers traced the problem to a propellant leak in the quick disconnect interface between the rocket and the launch pad.<\/p>\n<p>The LV0007 mission was built on lessons learned from Astra\u2019s previous orbital launch attempts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re out of the test flight phase,\u201d Kemp said Monday. \u201cWe\u2019ll&nbsp;be resuming with commercial payloads that will be operating for our customers in low Earth orbit. That\u2019s not to say that there won\u2019t be more test flights in the future. We have a new Rocket 4.0. We\u2019ll be flying a few test flights of that next year. And that\u2019s really something that we\u2019ll have the opportunity to focus on right now. But the Rocket 3.X series will go into production, and we\u2019ll go into launch operations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kemp said the Rocket 3 series, in its current configuration, can haul a payload of around 110 pounds (50 kilograms) into a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) mid-inclination orbit.<\/p>\n<p>He said Astra has more than 50 launches in its backlog.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can only imagine that demand will continue to grow as we\u2019ve seen over the past couple of years,\u201d Kemp said. \u201cSo I think Astra really is in a position to deliver a payload to precise orbit on a precise schedule. And this precision has a lot of value to our customers, their ability to fly something when they need it flown to exactly the orbit, and have it there in 10 minutes. That\u2019s a pretty powerful, unique capability that really just hasn\u2019t been available at scale in this in this industry before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kemp said Astra will expand to other launch sites. All of the company\u2019s orbital launch attempts so far have lifted off from Alaska.<\/p>\n<p>Astra\u2019s next rocket, LV0008, is \u201cwell on its way to being integrated,\u201d Lyon said Monday.&nbsp;Officials said details about the LV0008 launch would be announced soon.<\/p>\n<p>Scott Higginbotham, head of NASA\u2019s CubeSat Launch Initiative at Kennedy Space Center, said Friday that the space agency is the sole customer for the next Astra launch. The mission is part of NASA\u2019s Venture Class Launch Services, or VCLS, program, which awarded Astra a $3.9 million contract last year for a commercial CubeSat launch.<\/p>\n<p>Astra\u2019s first launch for NASA could happen before the end of the year, according to Higginbotham.<\/p>\n<p>NASA and Astra officials declined to identify the launch site for the VCLS demonstration mission, but multiple sources said the mission is currently slated to fly from pad 46, a commercial launch complex operated by Space Florida at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.<\/p>\n<p>Astra transports its launch vehicles and ground infrastructure from the company\u2019s headquarters in shipping containers, requiring no permanent infrastructure at the launch site. During launch campaigns in Alaska, Astra teams set up the launch pad and rocket in less than a week.<\/p>\n<p>The results from Saturday\u2019s launch suggest no changes are needed on Astra\u2019s next rocket, Kemp said.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff Astra LV0007 Reaches Orbit from Astra on Vimeo. Astra launched its first rocket into orbit from Alaska early Saturday after falling short on three previous tries, an achievement company officials said will unlock \u201ctremendous demand\u201d for its small satellite launch service. Company officials did not disclose a scheduled for its next mission in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}