American aerospace company
This article is about the U.S. aerospace company formerly named "Ventions". For the space satellite operator, see
SES Astra
. For other uses, see
Astra
.
Astra Space, Inc.
|
|
Company type
| Public
|
---|
| Nasdaq
:
ASTR
|
---|
Industry
| Aerospace
|
---|
Founded
| - October 2016
; 7 years ago
(
2016-10
)
(ASTRA)
- 2005
; 19 years ago
(
2005
)
(Ventions)
|
---|
Founder
| - Ventions:
- Adam London
- Amit Mehra
[1]
- Rory Keogh
[2]
|
---|
Headquarters
| |
---|
Key people
| Chris Kemp (
CEO
)
Adam London (
CTO
)
[3]
|
---|
Number of employees
| 100 (2023)
|
---|
Website
| astra
.com
|
---|
Astra Space, Inc.
is an American
launch vehicle
company based in
Alameda, California
. Astra was incorporated in October 2016 by
Chris Kemp
and Adam London.
[4]
[5]
Formerly known in media as "Stealth Space Company", the company formally came out as Astra Space, Inc. in a
Bloomberg L.P.
article by
Ashlee Vance
.
[6]
Investors include
BlackRock
, Advance, ACME,
Airbus Ventures
, Innovation Endeavors,
Salesforce
co-founder
Marc Benioff
, former
Disney
CEO
Michael Eisner
, and more.
[7]
History
[
edit
]
Astra was founded in October 2016 by
Chris Kemp
and Adam London.
[8]
Before being reincorporated as
Astra Space Inc.
in 2016,
Ventions, LLC
was a small San Francisco based aerospace research and design firm with a 10+ year history developing aerospace technology in partnership with
NASA
[9]
and
DARPA
. Ventions was founded in 2005 and located at 1142 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103.
[
clarification needed
]
Following the 2016 reincorporation, Ventions, LLC employees expanded to a new building at
Naval Air Station Alameda
, known as "Orion", due to its location at 1690 Orion Street, Alameda, CA 94501.
[10]
[11]
This former naval jet engine testing facility provided the ability to perform in-house single engine testing, as opposed to the former Ventions, LLC test site at
Castle Air Force Base
. Due to
Naval Air Station Alameda
's vast retired runways, the company was able to perform full vehicle testing very close to their headquarters, eliminating the need for expensive and complex logistics for rocket testing.
[12]
Ventions chose
Pacific Spaceport Complex ? Alaska
(PSCA) as their only launch site.
During early to mid 2019, most non-test related employees moved from the Orion building into a new building at 1900 Skyhawk Street, Alameda, CA 94501,
[13]
known as "Skyhawk". This allowed a large expansion of a previously cramped machine shop, additional in house machining capabilities, and a rocket production line in anticipation of Rocket 3. Additionally, this building has a number of known chemical contaminants
[14]
due to its history as a Naval jet engine overhaul facility (Building 360)
[13]
and is now designated as part of
Naval Air Station Alameda
Superfund
site.
[15]
[16]
Two
suborbital
test flights were conducted in 2018 from Pacific Spaceport Complex ? Alaska (PSCA): one on 20 July 2018 (Rocket 1.0), and one on 29 November 2018 (Rocket 2.0). Both were stated to be launch failures by the
Federal Aviation Administration
.
[17]
[18]
However, Astra stated that both were successful and the second one was "shorter than planned".
[19]
[5]
Astra spent 2019 designing and building Rocket 3.0 integrating propulsion systems, avionics, and other pressurization/plumbing components into a high-performance electric pump-fed orbital launch vehicle.
[
citation needed
]
From 2018 to 2020, Astra was a contender in the
DARPA Launch Challenge
; first, as one of three teams, although at this point Astra kept its involvement secret and was only referred to as "stealth startup" by the Challenge organizers. Then as the other two teams dropped out, Astra remained as the only team in the competition. The competition involved launching two small satellite payloads into orbit from two different launch sites in the U.S. with approximately two weeks between launches. Astra attempted to perform a launch for the Challenge in late February ? early March 2020 from PSCA, but had to scrub the launch attempts (due to faulty sensor data) and in the end, did not launch a rocket for the Challenge. With the competition's only remaining team (Astra) being unable to launch a rocket within the set time frame, DARPA announced the DARPA Launch Challenge closed on 2 March 2020 with no winner. The prize of US$12 million went unclaimed.
[19]
On 23 March 2020, Astra's Rocket 3.0 ("1 of 3"), the vehicle that was initially intended to launch as Astra's first rocket for the
DARPA Launch Challenge
, but which failed to launch within the challenge's launch window
[20]
[21]
and was subsequently reused for the next launch without DARPA involvement, suffered a fire on the launch pad (
PSCA, Pad 3B
[22]
) prior to launch, destroying the rocket.
[23]
In September 2020, Astra attempted another orbital rocket launch, this time with their Rocket 3.1.
[24]
The rocket cleared the launchpad and began to ascend before a failure caused all the engines to shut down. The vehicle began to quickly fall back down to Earth, exploding on impact.
[25]
Next month, Astra was selected by the U.S. Air Force's
AFWERX
program to pursue the development of their Rocket 5.0, although it was not clear if the selection was tied to a specific monetary award.
[26]
In the last month of 2020, Astra's Rocket 3.2 nearly (but did not) reached orbit after a launch from
Kodiak Island, Alaska
.
[27]
On 2 February 2021, Astra announced they planned to go
public
[28]
through a reverse merger with
special-purpose acquisition company
Holicity in a deal that valued the rocket company at a $2.1 billion enterprise value.
[29]
Later in February, Astra announced the appointment of former Apple engineering leader Benjamin Lyon as its new chief engineer.
[30]
On 7 June 2021, Astra announced their plans to acquire electric propulsion system manufacturer Apollo Fusion for $50 million, with the purchase being triggered by the merger with Holicity.
[31]
In July, Astra completed its first day as a
public company
on the
Nasdaq
, the first publicly traded space launch and rocket company on the exchange.
[32]
[33]
On 4 August 2022, together with the release of the Q2 2022 financial results, Astra announced that following two out of the previous four Rocket 3.3 launches being unsuccessful, they intended to fully transition to the upgraded Rocket 4, whose maiden flight has been subsequently rescheduled to 2023. Because of this, all remaining Rocket 3.3 launches had been cancelled and the company began talks with its customers to remanifest their payloads on Rocket 4.
[34]
On 3 November, 2023, Astra disclosed in its
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) filing that it defaulted on a $12.5 million debt financing agreement and could not assure it would be able to raise the necessary funds.
[35]
[36]
In November 2023, Astra founders, Chris Kemp and Adam London, proposed a plan to privatize the company by acquiring all the outstanding stock, according to a filing with the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
. The stock is offered at $1.50 per share, a significant premium over the closing trading price. The proposal is now under review by Astra's board of directors.
[37]
On 24 November, 2023, the company raised $2.7 million from existing investors to continue operations while it works out its long-term plan.
[38]
In March 2024, Astra's board agreed for the company to be taken private by its co-founders at a $11.25 million valuation.
[39]
[40]
Launch vehicles
[
edit
]
Astra produced several launch vehicle designs. Rocket 1 was a single test vehicle, with five
first stage
"Delphin" engines and a mass simulator in place of a functional second stage.
Rocket 2 was likewise a test vehicle without a second stage.
Rocket 3 was a 11.6 m (38 ft)
launch vehicle
that had an advertised payload capacity of 25?150 kg (55?331 lb) to a 500 km (310 mi)
Sun-synchronous orbit
. The rocket consisted of two stages. The first stage had five electric-pump-fed "Delphin" engines advertised at 6,500 lbf (29,000 N) of thrust each. The second stage had one pressure-fed "Aether" engine with 740 lbf (3,300 N) (vacuum) of thrust. The rocket was used as part of a project for the
DARPA Launch Challenge
, although challenge's deadline passed before any Rocket 3 launches. Launches of Rocket 3.0 and 3.1 resulted in failure, while Astra claimed success after Rocket 3.2 failed to reach orbit. Rocket 3.3 was larger than previous Rocket 3 variants, and multiple vehicles were produced and launched.
[41]
[42]
[43]
Rocket 3.3 serial number LV0007 became Astra's first rocket to reach orbit.
[44]
The final Rocket 3.3 produced, serial number LV0010, failed to launch the NASA
TROPICS-1
mission.
[45]
[46]
[47]
Rocket 4
[
edit
]
Rocket 4 was be a new rocket design, improving on capability and reliability compared to the outgoing Rocket 3 series. 18.9 m (62 ft) in height and 1.8 m (5.9 ft) in diameter, its planned payload capacity was 550 kg to a 300 km
low Earth orbit
or 350 kg to a 500 km
sun-synchronous orbit
. The first stage was designed around Astra Chiron engines (license-built
Firefly
Reaver engines) with a combined thrust of up to 80,000 lbf (360 kN), while the second stage propulsion was a
Ursa Major
Hadley ITV engine with a thrust of 6,500 lbf (29 kN). Astra aims to eventually achieve a weekly launch cadence with this vehicle.
Rocket 5
[
edit
]
In September 2020, Astra submitted a proposal to the
Air Force
's
AFWERX
program titled "Responsive Launch Enabled by Astra's Rocket 5.0". Rocket 5 was to be a variant of the Rocket 3 dedicated to
suborbital point-to-point delivery
, featuring a modified second stage between the Rocket 3's first and upper stages.
Satellite bus
[
edit
]
Astra is developing a
satellite bus
for customer payloads. The first prototypes were planned for launch in 2022 on Rocket 3 launch vehicles, with customer services to commence in 2023.
[48]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
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{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
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External links
[
edit
]