Astra Space Continues To Focus On Spacecraft Engines For The Time Being
Astra Space has had a very action packed and interesting history for the short amount of time the company has been operating. After multiple failed launch attempts they managed to successfully reach orbit and technically become the fastest company in history to achieve this milestone. This being said, things turned around quickly and now the company is without a launch vehicle, and the ability to access orbit.
Since then, we have seen a continued shift in services as Astra Space puts more and more focus into spacecraft engines and general spacecraft hardware. With a somewhat unknown future regarding launch system 2.0 and when they will have access to orbit again, these additionally provided services play an even bigger role in the company as a whole.
Unfortunately for Astra, the company is definitely not where it wants to be. However, the company is not giving up and is trying to do everything in its power to turn the tables and become a consistent and capable launch provider. Here I will go more in-depth into some of the recent deals the company has made, a closer look at their spacecraft engines, the future of Astra, and more.
More Spacecraft Engines
Following Astra’s most recent Rocket 3.0 launch failure during the TROPICS mission, the company has been increasing its contracts and jobs relating to spacecraft engines. With Launch System 2.0 expected to begin testing late next year, the rocket will likely not start officially launching payloads until 2024. If this is the case, for the time being, Astra will need to continue working on additional projects and sources of income.
In this month alone, Astra Space has already signed two new contracts relating to spacecraft engines. The first was on October 11th when the company announced that it had reached an agreement with Maxar Technologies to supply Astra Spacecraft Engines. In this case, the propulsion systems will be used in Maxar’s proliferated low Earth orbit spacecraft, which support a wide variety of global coverage missions, including Earth observation, communications, and national security. Astra expects to begin delivery of its spacecraft engines in 2023.
More recently, on the 13th, Astra tweeted saying, “Astra announces a contract with @Astroscale_HQ to provide Astra Spacecraft Engines for its space sustainability spacecraft platform.” Here they announced an agreement with Astroscale Holdings Inc had been reached, the market leader in satellite servicing and long-term orbital sustainability across all orbits, to provide Astra Spacecraft Engines for its space sustainability spacecraft platform, ELSA-M, which attempts to safely and responsibly capture and retire multiple client satellites in a single mission. The satellite servicer will be designed and optimized to remove multiple pieces of debris from LEO in a single orbital mission. The development of this commercial service is supported by the UK Space Agency and European Space Agency as part of the ESA Sunrise program.
“The Astra Spacecraft Engine’s flight heritage, reliability, and scalability were critical factors in selecting Astra as we prepare our ELSA-M platform for important customer missions, and we look forward to continue building a strong relationship with Mike and his team.” said Ian Vanoorschot, Astroscale’s Global Head of Procurement. “Astra and Astroscale share common values in making space sustainable,” said Mike Cassidy, Vice President of Product Management. “This agreement expands our customer base to Europe, where we see growing demand in Spacecraft Engine capability.”
Following this theme, just three days ago the company had even more news about its spacecraft engines. On October 18th Astra Space tweeted saying, “Astra celebrates cumulative committed orders since July 1, 2021 for more than 200 engines and two full programs of Astra Spacecraft Engines already delivered.” Chris Kemp, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Astra commented, “I’m thrilled that Astra has achieved both milestones: over 200 engines ordered and delivery of two full programs. Thank you to our customers for their confidence in our team and products, and congratulations to the team for the tremendous amount of work put in to achieve this milestone.” Astra is preparing for a move-in this quarter into its new 60,000 square foot production facility in Sunnyvale, California, where the team is expected to ramp production early next year to meet planned customer deliveries.
“We have more than doubled our backlog since June 30th of this year in Astra Spacecraft Engines™ where we continue to see sustained demand,” said Margo de Naray, VP of Mission Management and Customer Operations, “Reliable, on-time deliveries and exceptional customer focus are key to this positive momentum.” More evidence of a shift as the company works on a future launch system and spacecraft engines right now.
Launch System 2.0 & More
The most recent Astra launch was in June of this year with NASA. Unfortunately, the launch did not go as planned and the payloads were lost. After these initial results, it took a few months before Astra released some information regarding what went wrong. They determined that the upper stage shut down early due to a higher-than-normal fuel consumption rate. Through the review of flight data, reconstruction of flight timelines, and the construction of an extensive fault tree, they have narrowed the root cause to an issue with the upper stage engine. They also pointed out that the company had completed many rounds of ground testing, including multiple tests that yielded results consistent with the failure condition in flight. All of which being said, the company and FAA are still investigating exactly what went wrong and Astra is expected to release more information on the mishap sometime in the future.
Looking back at some of Astra’s plans and reports earlier in the year really puts in perspective how much the recent failure changed things. For example, not long before the TROPICS mission, the company released an update regarding future launch plans and the future of Astra. Specifically, they highlighted how they planned to achieve a daily launch capability by: (a) expanding the number of spaceports, (b) using private and exclusive-use launch sites, (c) leveraging streamlined regulatory processes, such as the FAA’s Part 450 License, (d) using its existing mobile launch capability, and (e) requiring limited infrastructure at the launch site. This plan obviously has been put on hold as the company works to regain access to orbit.
In addition, in a letter to shareholders released earlier this year as well, Astra thoroughly explained the start of operations to significantly increase launch cadence. They highlighted that in Phase 1 of their plan, Astra is primarily focused on dramatically increasing access to space, because you can’t build a space platform that will improve life on Earth from space if you can’t get to space. Astra continued by saying, while rocket science may be notoriously complicated, economies of scale apply like any other industry. Put simply, if you produce something at higher and higher volumes, regardless of how complex it is, it is easier to reduce the per-unit cost. To get more to space economically, you can either scale up your rocket (and make a really big rocket), or design a rocket that is easy and inexpensive to produce, and scale out your factory to make many smaller rockets. While large reusable rockets are ideal for transporting people and large cargo to space, Astra’s customers tell them that the flexibility of getting to the right place in space as quickly as possible, at the lowest possible per-launch cost is what is important to them. This is why they chose to scale out their factory instead of scaling up their rocket. They believe a thriving space economy requires both high volume small launch and human-rated large launch, and that the lowest cost leaders in each of these categories will be winners.
With this in mind, we can take a closer look at the company’s next rocket and what it’s expected to offer. Astra points out that they designed Launch System 2.0 specifically to support an increased launch cadence. Here, more frequent launches allow you to deploy and maintain your constellation on your terms – with a partner as dynamic as your business. They also are trying to make sure that the rocket is mobile and low cost. Similar to the previous rocket lines, Astra has focused on mobility and automation. The goal is for the entire launch system to be mobile, with the ability to be easily and discreetly transported anywhere in the world in standard ISO shipping containers by truck, ship, rail, or cargo aircraft. What’s more, a very small team, currently just six people, can deploy an entire launch system and be ready to launch in less than seven days. We demonstrated this capability earlier this year when we conducted our first launch out of Cape Canaveral for NASA. Through further automation and process efficiency improvements, they aspire to reduce the size of this team even further.
Conclusion
Astra Space has had quite a few ups and downs in a short period of time. The most recent TROPICS failure had a very big impact on the company’s plans, goals, and future timeline. Recently we have seen more and more contracts relating to spacecraft engines and services. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.