California-based Astra launched two shoe-sized NASA satellites from Cape Canaveral on Sunday on a modest mission to improve hurricane forecasts, but the second stage of the bottom reinforcement cost of the company malfunctioned before reaching orbit and payloads were lost.
“The upper stage closed soon and we did not deliver payloads into orbit,” Astra tweeted. “We have shared our grief with @NASA and the payload team. More information will be provided after a complete data analysis is completed.”
We had a nominal flight of the first stage. The upper stage closed soon and we did not deliver the payloads into orbit. We shared our grief with @NASA and the payload team. More information will be provided after a complete review of the data is completed.
– Astra (@Astra) June 12, 2022
It was the seventh launch of Astra’s small “Venture class” rocket and the company’s fifth failure. Sunday’s launch was the first of three planned for NASA to launch six small CubeSats, two at a time, on three orbital planes.
Given the somewhat risky nature of relying on a small shoe-sized CubeAats and a rocket with a very short history, the $ 40 million project only requires four satellites and two successful launches to achieve the goals of the mission.
Astra’s 3.3 rocket takes off from the Cape Canaveral space force station on Sunday with two small NASA satellites designed to control tropical storms and hurricanes. Astra / NASASpaceflight webcast
The NASA contract envisages the last two flights in late July. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post.
“Although today’s launch with @Astra did not go as planned, the mission provided a great opportunity for new launch capabilities and science,” tweeted NASA chief scientific officer Thomas Zurbuchen.
Although today’s launch with @Astra did not go as planned, the mission provided a great opportunity for new launch capabilities and science. https://t.co/9s30sDWJzz
– Thomas Zurbuchen (@Dr_ThomasZ) June 12, 2022
Sunday’s launch came an hour and 43 minutes late, mainly to ensure that the propellant’s liquid oxygen propellant charge was at the right temperature. Finally, hoping to mark the company’s third successful flight into orbit, Astra engineers made the countdown to takeoff at 13:43 ET.
With its five first-stage engines generating 32,500 pounds of thrust, the 43-foot-tall Rocket 3.3 moved away from pad 46 to the Cap Cañaveral space force station, offering a spectacular spectacle for residents. of the area and tourists enjoying a sunny day nearby. beaches.
The first stage increased the payload of the lower atmosphere, moving to the only engine that fed the upper stage of the rocket.
Everything seemed to be going well when, about a minute before the second stage engine was expected to shut down, a “rocket camera” on board showed a flash on the engine’s exhaust plume. The view from the camera showed what looked like a drop before the video of the rocket was cut.
A rocket camera next to the top stage of the propeller shows a sudden change in the engine exhaust plume (left), indicating a premature stop, while flight controllers from the Astra Alameda Control Center, California , look. The payload of two satellites was lost. Astra / NASASpaceflight webcast
The goal of NASA’s TROPICS mission is to monitor the development of tropical storms in near real time by flying over hurricanes and other major systems every 45 to 50 minutes and sending temperature, precipitation, water vapor and ice data profiles. clouds.
This ability to quickly review, that is, the time that elapses between satellites over a given system of storms, is intended to help scientists better understand how major storms develop and to help forecasters better predict route and the intensity of a storm.
“Measuring hurricanes from space is very difficult to do, because they are very dynamic, they are changing in minute time scales, you have to solve spatially all the characteristics of the storm, the eyes, the rain bands,” he said. William. Blackwell, principal investigator of MIT’s TROPICS mission.
“Today, we may have four or six hours before the next satellite flies over. With this constellation of six Cubesat satellites … we can fly over every hour. We’ll see how the storm is changing, we can predict better. “We are trying to improve our ability to predict.”
NASA is paying $ 8 million for three Astra launches and about $ 32 million for the development and testing of cubes and a year of data analysis.
The TROPICS mission poses more technical risk than NASA usually accepts: Cubes, though relatively inexpensive, have little redundancy and Astra’s Rocket 3.3 has not yet shown reliable performance, but officials say the potential benefit scientific justifies a “high risk and high impact.” project.
“I love TROPICS, just because it’s kind of a crazy mission,” Zurbuchen said last week. “Think of six cubes … watching tropical storms with a repeat time of 50 minutes instead of 12 hours.”
After Sunday’s failure, he tweeted: “Although we’re disappointed right now, we know: there is value in taking risks in our overall NASA science portfolio because we need to innovate to lead.”
Even though we are disappointed right now, we know this: there is value in taking risks in our overall NASA science portfolio because innovation is needed to lead.
Check out the article written, in part, based on my pre-release comments. https://t.co/Zjp0czzAd1
– Thomas Zurbuchen (@Dr_ThomasZ) June 12, 2022
Although the NASA contract covers six cubes and their launchers, only four have to work to meet the requirements of the contract. In that case, Blackwell said, review times would be on the order of an hour. With the six in operation, the distance between observations would be 45 to 50 minutes.
Putting TROPICS on what NASA calls a Venture class rocket with a short history made sense from NASA’s perspective.
“You’re always nervous about any release, no matter what the vehicle,” Blackwell said. But in this case, “we have built-in endurance capability to tolerate this kind of new capabilities. So it’s a good combination between our robust mission with six satellites, and we only need four, and this new cost capability more low, fast cadence. release “.
More by William Harwood
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as head of the United States International Chief of Staff’s headquarters and now as a consultant for CBS News. It covered 129 space shuttle missions, all interplanetary flights from Neptune’s overflight of Voyager 2, and dozens of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”