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Space

After 'Sideways' Launch, Space Startup Astra's Rocket Fails to Reach Orbit (space.com) 60

California Bay Area space startup Astra "attempted its third orbital test flight today, sending its two-stage Launch Vehicle 0006 skyward from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska's Kodiak Island at 6:35 p.m. EDT (2235 GMT)," reports Space.com.

"The rocket suffered an anomaly about 2.5 minutes after liftoff, however, and the flight was terminated." Something appeared to be wrong from the beginning, as Launch Vehicle 0006 lurched sideways at the moment of liftoff rather than rise smoothly off the pad. But the rocket recovered and soared high into the Alaska sky, reaching an altitude of about 20.5 miles (33 kilometers) before shutting down, according to real-time data Astra provided during a webcast of the launch. The mission was terminated right around "max q," the point when the mechanical stresses on a rocket are highest. A camera mounted on Launch Vehicle 0006 appeared to show a piece of the booster breaking loose around that time.

"Although we did not achieve our primary objective today, our team will work hard to determine what happened here," Carolina Grossman, director of product management at Astra, said during today's launch webcast. "And as we dig into the flight data, we are optimistic about the future and our next attempt...." Initial analyses show that one of the rocket's five first-stage engines failed about 1 second after liftoff, for reasons that weren't immediately clear, Astra co-founder, chairman and CEO Chris Kemp said in a short postflight briefing this evening... "It was obviously not successful at putting anything in orbit, but it was a flight where we learned a tremendous amount of obviously things we need to look into as we prepare to return to Kodiak and fly again," he added...

[T]oday's launch was the first of two booked by the U.S. Space Force; the second was expected to lift off later this year, though that timeline could end up shifting a bit. Astra holds a number of other contracts as well: The company has signed deals for more than 50 launches that together represent more than $150 million in revenue, Kemp told Space.com last month... And over the long haul, the company plans to ramp up its launch cadence to an unprecedented level, potentially transforming humanity's access to space.

"Our next objective is monthly, then weekly, and finally daily space delivery," Astra co-founder and chief technology officer Adam London said...

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After 'Sideways' Launch, Space Startup Astra's Rocket Fails to Reach Orbit

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  • by invictusvoyd ( 3546069 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @12:00AM (#61740489)

    The launch of earth observation satellite EOS-03, aboard the Indian Space Research Organisation 's (Isro) heavy launch vehicle GSLV, was unsuccessful on Thursday morning when the third stage of the engine did not ignite

    And these folks have been doing it for a long time now .. rockets are certainly complex stuff..

    • by dvice ( 6309704 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @05:21AM (#61740763)

      Actually rocket science itself is pretty simple (the principles of how rockets work, what fuel to use, aerodynamics, etc.). It is the programming part, handling errors and preventing parts from breaking that is hard. In other words, rocket science is easy, rocket engineering is hard.

      Rocket science is easy: At least now that it has been solved, but we should remember that some people spent their entire life trying to figure it out. Obviously if material science finds for example new materials that don't break so easily, it will make the engineering part easier, but most people building rockets don't even try to find new materials, so I would not call that rocket science.

      • In other words, rocket science is easy, rocket engineering is hard.

        Rocket science is easy: At least now that it has been solved, but we should remember that some people spent their entire life trying to figure it out. Obviously if material science finds for example new materials that don't break so easily, it will make the engineering part easier, but most people building rockets don't even try to find new materials, so I would not call that rocket science.

        I agree with most of what you said.

        There is a lot of research going on RDE's, Aerospikes, other aspects of non traditional rocketry. Materials as well, but there's only so much you can do.

        But especially for the early stages, near earth at maximum weight, There are real basics going on. You gotta get huge amounts of fuel and oxidant into a combustion chamber, ignite and exhaust it in a single direction with gimbals for directional control, without it destroying itself.

        And getting to orbital speed thro

        • NASA's X34 spaceplane had a lot of composite materials and suffered for it. Starship was originally going to be composite. But it brings up the question of whether or not space agencies are not experimenting with different materials.

          Blue Origin's New Glenn was also supposed to be composite. They went so far as to order and install a gigantic custom layup machine called Mongoose from Ingersoll Machine Tools to fabricate the things. Looks like Blue Origin is already considering giving up on it too, with photos of their first stainless steel tank surfacing last week.

          New materials are harder than rocket science, at this point in human history.

          • NASA's X34 spaceplane had a lot of composite materials and suffered for it. Starship was originally going to be composite. But it brings up the question of whether or not space agencies are not experimenting with different materials.

            Blue Origin's New Glenn was also supposed to be composite. They went so far as to order and install a gigantic custom layup machine called Mongoose from Ingersoll Machine Tools to fabricate the things. Looks like Blue Origin is already considering giving up on it too, with photos of their first stainless steel tank surfacing last week.

            New materials are harder than rocket science, at this point in human history.

            Occasionally, there is not much room for finesse. Some times people lose site of the fact that composites are generally stronger than (x) by weight It does not mean that they are stronger.

      • The popular term "rocket science" really means "rocket engineering" which is indeed challenging and unforgiving. But popular language is often not too concerned with technical precision, and the four syllable "rocket science" rolls off the tongue more easily than "rocket engineering".

        The origin of the term may have to do with the fact that in the late 1950s the public's familiarity with rocketry development, and its difficulty, was the Vanguard program was trying to launch a scientific satellite. So at the

    • They've been doing it for a long time, but not with hydrogen upper stage engines.
    • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @02:41PM (#61742091) Journal
      Having seen the video of the launch, I'd say it was some rather impressive software that allowed it to recover as well as it did. We've apparently come a long way in the last 70 years.
  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @12:03AM (#61740497)

    I wonder how many more launch failures they have left before the company is not viable.

    I recall reading the history of SpaceX, that around launch four or five, if that launch hadn't worked the company was done...

    I guess SpaceX has paved the way to show viability of private space industry that probably gives this other company way more initial backing and tolerance for failures before they get moving.

    I have this feeling that by the time they are doing daily launches, SpaceX would be also...

    • by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @12:52AM (#61740553)

      I guess SpaceX has paved the way to show viability of private space industry that probably gives this other company way more initial backing and tolerance for failures before they get moving.

      Hmm, kinda like how the iPhone helped Windows Mobile?

      • Hmm, kinda like how the iPhone helped Windows Mobile?

        Yeah I must admit I really wonder if that is what we are looking at in reality, even if they get working rockets going... SpaceX just seems to be so effective at reducing costs and getting things working, that I really wonder if there can be another company that is truly competitive on price.

      • by bads ( 141215 )

        More like how the iPhone helped Android.

    • SpaceX plausibly could have reached orbit on their very first attempt were it not for the (corrosion-prone) aluminium nuts they initially decided to use. That was very easily fixed by simply not using aluminium nuts. On the other hand, an engine RUD at liftoff during Astra's fifth try inspires quite a bit less optimism in me. That's a bit late to have such events.
    • Especially considering how many companies are building small rockets right now. The competition will be fierce in a few years which is probably why rocket lab is building the neutron. They can't be sure to be the cheapest small launch in 5 years or so. So, Astra needs to show booth that they can launch rockets AND that they can do it cheaper/better than Rocket Lab plus all the up and coming competitors.

    • But Wall Street is perfectly willing to fund "tech" companies bleeding billion dollars a year. But the tech part is an app and idea like door delivery or dog walking gigs.

      Companies that launch rockets or simulate full chip electronics with thermal and stress solvers starve, unable hire developers...

  • These guys have some noble goals. I wish them luck despite their setbacks.
  • It looked like one of the clamps didn't release, then was broken and threw debris into the rocket. It was hard to see clearly though...
  • If I were programming it, that's exactly what I would set it to do. If there's a major anomaly at launch and you're not going to make it, get as far from humans as possible before you buy the farm. I doubt it was related to max Q except coincidentally.
    • by quenda ( 644621 )

      I doubt it was related to max Q except coincidentally.

      Was it actually at Max-Q? At 20 miles the atmosphere is extremely thin. Max-Q normally happens at less than half that altitude.
      I saw the live video where they said approaching max-Q, but suspect their data was off.

      • by v1 ( 525388 )

        There's a good chance an engine aborted or failed to start at liftoff, and that's why it "lingered" at the pad, waiting for fuel to be used, to lighten the vehicle, so the thrust-to-weight ratio would go into positive numbers.

        I SUSPECT that the programming was set such that "if we lose an engine at liftoff, push all remaining engines as hard as necessary (beyond 100%) to prevent the vehicle from coming down on the tower". And once enough fuel had been burned, it was able to get off the pad at 100%. The od

        • The odds of thrust-to-weight "coincidentally" being exactly 100% for like 8 seconds is essentially zero - something was managing that.

          Considering that ~1.25 is a rather normal T/W ratio to have at liftoff (for example early Falcon 9 FT had almost exactly that), if you reduce that by one fifth for the reason of failure of one of the engines, you end up with a ~1.0 T/W ratio quite naturally.

          I'd be very interested to see just how hot the engines were running there, 125% would not surprise me.

          It definitely would surprise *me*, because that's not how rocket engines usually work. If you can throttle in the first place, you throttle down from the nominal thrust, not up (unless you're one of them weird RS-25 designers and measure things in terms

        • It's the ones that spontaneously explode at liftoff, or that go up 10 feet and fall right back down, destroying the pad, that are the only actual "complete failures".

          Or the ones that explode during testing a few days before launch [youtube.com].

  • Whose a cute little pint size bottle of fire? Who is it!? Whose going to orbit? You are! yes you are!
  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @02:23AM (#61740639)

    The V-2 wasn't successful until the 4th try, the same thing with SpaceX. I think there is a lot of precedences. Also, there is no rule to say give up on the fourth try .. I'd say learn and retry at least 15 to 20 times or at least until you truly can't figure out where it's going wrong. It's worth it.

    • Right - rockets failing during development always happens with such programs since with rockets virtually anything going wrong leads to failure to achieve the correct orbit and loss of the rocket (though only with SpaceX thus far is this not inevitable). So "rocket failure while in development" is a "dog bites man" story. Eventually they have to eliminate the failures of course. In a competitive environment being too slow to do this could be fatal to the business.
  • Clamp Issue? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @02:56AM (#61740665)
    Watching the full video of the launch [youtube.com], the first "interesting" observation occurs at the ten-second mark.

    If you watch carefully, you will see to the right of the rocket base [as observed] when the explosive bolts fire to release the clamps that hold the rocket in place during the initial cycle-up and balance of the rockets. It is difficult to see, because of the brief duration of the event and the exhaust gases, but it looks as though a portion of the clamp - a straight piece of metal with a structural formation at one end, flips up and almost strikes the rocket fuselage. Very difficult to know if that caused damage, however, and it seems unlikely given that the vehicle flew on for several minutes past this point.

    Watching it from there to about the 40 second mark, where we lose ground-based references, it's clear that there's a lot of "traversal" going on, along with minimal altitude gain. These two things - traversal and lack of altitude - *might* suggest that one of the rocket motors was not fully functional. A lack of total thrust would result in the vehicle losing the ability to climb [at least, until it had burned enough propellant to do so] and might also explain the off-axis drift.

    Difficult to know without a better understanding of their margins, but given the ~ 10 seconds of flight with no altitude gain, all burning fuel at maximum vehicle mass, might have made it difficult if not impossible to give the payload sufficient impulse to reach orbit. What's the rule of thumb? 2 percent of your take-off-weight makes orbit? Anyone else think they could have burned 2% of their mass during those first 20 seconds?

    Very interesting to see what they get from their post-flight analysis.
    • Re:Clamp Issue? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @07:07AM (#61740879) Journal

      They know that one of the 5 engines failed 1 second after launch, so that clamp could have damaged the engine closest to it. It is pretty amazing that the flight control systems were able to keep the rocket vertical and flying with such a failure. That sort of thing could have never have flown at all in previous generations of rockets. It would have simply fallen over or rotated and flew straight into the ground, like all the other exploding rocket videos on YouTube.

      I guess one way of looking at it is at takeoff, and zero velocity, maximum weight, four of the five engines pretty much counteract gravity making the rocket "weightless". Then the fifth engine's thrust is what lifts it in to the air immediately after launch.

      • Previous rockets could have done the same thing if the coincidental payload weight equaled the thrust. This is what an overloaded rocket looks like until it's burned off enough fuel weight to go to sufficiently positive thrust-to-weight ratios to out-accelerate gravitational pull. Unfortunately, by that time they didn't have enough fuel left to get the thing where it was supposed to be.

    • This is a much longer video and includes other view and enhance grabs along with video of the rocket being erected and relevant stills of the base https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
  • by cyberthanasis12 ( 926691 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @03:35AM (#61740703)
    This is the most incredible recovery I have ever seen in rockets. It is really impressive that it did not blow up, it is more impressive that it managed to climb after that.
    • Agreed. One of its 5 engines blew up and it didn't cause cascading failure. That's great to build on in the future for safety when they start carrying humans. The Soviet N1 moon rocket kept failing because they didn't isolate the explosion when one of their engines failed and that caused a cascading failure even though they actually did have redundancy built-in.

    • Very cool recovery from the failure. Very bad for your lawn though.
      For a while they showed the vertical speed, it really started very slowly.

    • Exactly. I was hoping the ceo would highlight that. Would be interested to know if the failure at the beginning also precipitated the need for shutdown mid flight.

  • Really, how hard can it be? It's not like it's rocket science...!
    Oh wait
  • "Our next objective is monthly, then weekly, and finally daily space delivery," Astra co-founder and chief technology officer Adam London said..."

    And they are already planning the Galactic Empire.

  • Unfortunately, getting rockets to work right IS rocket science.

  • ..the footage of this launch to be added to those "Top 10 Failed Rocket Launches" crap videos on Youtube.

    • I lived in Houston at the time of Gemini 5. NASA had a launch bloopers reel that could be accessed if someone knew the right person. Someone borrowed it and showed it to our model rocket club. Much of what is on the variously redundant videos today, was already in that film.
  • by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @12:35PM (#61741745)
    Scott Manely was checking out the after effects on the launch pad, and it burned the ground as it went along. It also exited through the gate in the fence, which luckily was left open. Probably wouldn't have hit the fence, but it did have a -1 m/s velocity at the time. Blasting the fence into the air might have ended the rocket right then.
  • Cartesian (Score:4, Funny)

    by sudonim2 ( 2073156 ) on Sunday August 29, 2021 @01:16PM (#61741841)
    Of course it went sideways. They couldn't be SpaceX so they had to be SpaceY.
  • That launch was ABSOLUTELY FUCKING PRICELESS! And the Flight Controller...she maintained composure as the damned thing FAILED without crashing and burning on the launch site. "We have achieved nominal trajectory" as it finally burned enough fuel to start going UP...The way it was pointed. They couldn't have possibly trained for that--they couldn't have ever conceived of it happening. Man, Kudos to some seriously Steely-Eyed Missile Men and Women.

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