ARCADIA, California – An astronaut launch from two NASA cubes to control tropical storms failed on June 12 when the rocket’s upper stage closed prematurely.
Astra’s Rocket 3.3 vehicle, designated LV0010, took off from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 1:43 p.m. The takeoff took place at the end of a two-hour window that opened at 12:00 pm east, after an initial launch attempt had stopped less than two minutes before takeoff. due to a problem with the condition of the vehicle’s liquid oxygen propellant.
The launch was initially according to plan, with the first stage fired for three minutes, followed by the engine shutdown, the deployment of the payload fairing and the separation of the stage. The engine of the upper stage was started for a burn intended to last 5 minutes and 15 seconds, according to a chronology of the mission distributed by the company.
However, about four minutes after that burn, the video of the rocket briefly showed a plume of the engine, after which the vehicle appeared to fall. The expected time for the engine to stop and the two-cubed rocket payload to deploy passed silently.
The company soon acknowledged a failure of the mission. “We had a nominal flight of the first stage. The upper stage closed soon and we did not deliver the payloads into orbit,” the company tweeted. “We have shared our grief with NASA and the payload team. More information will be provided after a complete review of the data is completed.”
The failure is the second of three Astra launch attempts this year. Another launch for NASA, which also took place from Cape Canaveral on February 10, failed when the payload fairing did not separate, a problem the company located at a defect in the diagram. separation system wiring. The company returned to flight on March 15, putting its first payloads into orbit on a launch from Kodiak Island, Alaska. The company has successfully reached orbit in just two of its first seven releases.
This launch was the first of three for time-resolved observations of NASA’s precipitation structure and storm intensity with a constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS), a set of six three-unit cubes. which carry microwave radiometers to measure temperature and precipitation in tropical storm systems. . The full constellation of six satellites would have provided less than an hour’s review time, which would have allowed scientists to better monitor the formation of these storms, although the mission can still achieve its goals. scientists with four satellites.
The six TROPIC satellites would launch two at a time with three Astra rockets, each in different orbital planes. The mission’s preferred orbits – an altitude of 550 kilometers and an inclination of 29.75 degrees – optimized the science they could produce, but pushed for a dedicated launch solution rather than launching them as secondary payloads.
“We have to go in a 30-degree inclined orbit and no one else wants to go. All shared cars go in synchronous orbits in the sun or medium inclinations, so it’s very well aimed at a smaller vehicle with a very where they can take us exactly where we want to go, “said William Blackwell, principal investigator at TROPICS. at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, in a video on the mission.
NASA acknowledged, however, that it was taking a greater risk with this approach. He awarded Astra a contract valued at $ 7.95 million for the three launches in February 2021, ahead of the company’s first successful launch.
“Although we are disappointed right now, we know: there is value in taking risks in our overall NASA science portfolio because innovation is needed to lead,” tweeted Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate science administrator after launch failure.
“I am confident that in the future we will be able to use this valuable launching capability to explore the unknown and give others the same opportunity to inspire the world through discovery,” he added.