Astra Launch Fails on First TROPICS Flight for NASA
takyon writes:
Astra launch fails on first TROPICS flight for NASA
The first of three flights to launch the TROPICS satellites for NASA lifted off on Sunday during at 1:43 PM EDT (17:43 UTC). Astra's LV0010 vehicle launched from SLC-46 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, making the company's seventh orbital launch attempt.
After a nominal first stage burn, the upper stage engine shut down early. As a result, the vehicle and payloads were lost.
[...] TROPICS-1 was Astra's seventh orbital launch attempt since the first and only flight of Rocket 3.1 in September 2020. After a few test flights that fell short of orbit, Astra successfully placed the LV0007 vehicle's upper stage with a hosted US Space Force payload into orbit from Kodiak in November 2021.
The next launch, LV0008 in February 2022, was Astra's first from Cape Canaveral's SLC-46 and the company's first for NASA. The ELaNa-41 mission failed to deploy multiple CubeSats into orbit due to a fairing separation failure. The following mission, LV0009 from Kodiak, was the first to successfully deploy payloads into orbit for Spaceflight Inc. in March 2022.
Also at Space News and Spaceflight Now.
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