Images obtained by TechCrunch show the catastrophic end suffered by Astra’s Rocket 3.0 during pre-launch testing in March 2020.
The explosion, which occurred at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska, was reported at the time simply as an “anomaly,” an industry term for just about any problem that deviates from the expected outcome.
“I can confirm that we had an anomaly on the launch pad,” Mark Lester, CEO of Alaska Aerospace. told local reporters at the time. “We are running our emergency checklist. We are asking everyone to stay away from the area to allow our team to address the situation.
Meanwhile, Astra CEO Chris Kemp told TechCrunch at the time that the rocket “suffered an anomaly following an otherwise successful day of testing in Kodiak in preparation for launch this week”. He added that the company’s equipment “was the only thing damaged.” He said in a separate post that the company would not attempt a launch after this week and would “wait until coronavirus conditions improve before making another attempt” – when in reality he would not. there was no more rocket to launch.
The video clip shows the micro-launcher catching fire. It is clear that the vehicle did not survive. This would be Astra’s third orbital launch attempt.
At the time, Astra accepted these failures with ease. When the company emerged from stealth earlier this year, it did so with the belief that it could build rockets in such large quantities and so cheaply that any number of failures could be taken into account: 100% reliability was not the solution. final objective. This is how Kemp summed it up in a May 2022 interview: “I think a lot of people expect every launch to be perfect,” he said. “I think what Astra needs to do, really, is we need to have so many launches that no one thinks about it.”
Astra then reached orbit for the first time in November 2021 and a second time in March 2022.
Astra has been one of the space industry’s biggest investor success stories, with the startup going public in July 2021 at a valuation of $2.1 billion after raising nearly $500 million for its launch plans at very low cost. But those plans didn’t come to fruition and after months of burning cash, Astra’s board quietly agreed to a deal to take Kemp and CTO Adam London private at a price of just $0.50 per share. The deal is expected to close this quarter, at which point Astra will cease trading on Nasdaq.
Astra did not return a request for comment on the 2020 launch failure.
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