Astra just reached space for the first time.
The California startup launched its second orbital test flight today (Dec. 15), shipping the two-stage Missile 3.2 skyward from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, shortly before 4:00 pm EST (2100 GMT; noon Alaska local time).
The 38-foot-high (12-meter) Rocket 3.2 achieved a series of significant milestones by passing the combustion of the engine’s first stage and successfully separating the top stage, Astra representatives said. said via Twitter during the flight.
Related: The History of Missiles
pic.twitter.com/SRIIWOYLMaDecember 15, 2020
And that’s not all: Rocket 3.2 managed to fly past the 100-kilometer boundary between Earth and space, known as the Kármán line, after Hungarian-American physicist and engineer Theodore von Kármán, Astra said via Twitter. (This isn’t the only recognized boundary between Earth and space; NASA and the United States Air Force assign astronaut wings to anyone who ascends at least 50 miles or 80 km.)
“HUGE SUCCESS !!!!!!! Flight video, data and more details to follow!” Astra tweeted this afternoon.
It’s unclear at this point exactly how high Rocket 3.2 got on this test flight, which wasn’t carrying any payload, or whether the booster reached orbit. This story will be updated when Astra provides these details.
Based in the Bay Area, Astra develops rockets designed to give small spacecraft special rides in orbit. Another California company, Rocket Lab, already offers this service, but Astra plans to conquer its own niche with its line of flexible and inexpensive boosters. (Large rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 usually also carry small satellites as secondary payloads. But such rhythm missions are tailored to the needs of the large primary payloads, so the smaller tagalongs generally have to make do with less accurate orbital deliveries.)
“What we are trying to do is build a service with lower running costs and a lower cost of delivering the launch service,” Chris Kemp, Astra’s CEO, said in a conference call with reporters last July.
“ That includes a much cheaper missile, a highly automated factory, a highly automated launch operation and really just a real focus on efficiency and taking costs away from every aspect of the service so we can achieve scale and ultimately reduce costs by means of savings. of scale and production, ”said Kemp.
A short video recap of our 8.5 minute flight to space today! pic.twitter.com/gvElF4fbAZDecember 16, 2020
Astra hopes to be fully operational next year; the company is currently offering launch services will begin in 2021 and 2022. And Astra already has a number of customers lined up. For example NASA Astra recently awarded $ 3.9 million to launch small satellites into orbit.
Today’s test flight was an important step on the intended path.
Astra’s first orbital launch attempt, with a booster known as Rocket 3.1, took place last September. Rocket 3.1 took off well, but encountered a conduction problem during the initial combustion of the engine, prompting Astra terminate the flight about 30 seconds after take-off for safety reasons.
Astra quickly reduced the problem to a clear software glitch in Rocket 3.1’s steering and navigation system, expressing confidence that the company would soon be back on track. And that has indeed happened; Rocket 3.2 took off just three months after the short flight of its predecessor.
Astra did not count on Rocket 3.1 or Rocket 3.2 to be fully successful. Company representatives have said they expect it will take three attempts to reach orbit.
Mike Wall is the author of “Outside(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the quest for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.