In financial fragility, Astra stops the launches of its small Rocket 3 launcher

The situation becomes tense for astrathe startup American space company which had set itself the objective of becoming a competitor of SpaceX (and others) on the market for putting small satellites into orbit. Astra’s light launchers, designed for a rapidly profitable business model, have in fact turned out to be real money pits: after 5 failures out of 7 launches and losses of 48 million dollars in the second quarter of 2022, there are no more to Astra that 200 million dollars in the coffers, not to mention that investors would now hesitate to put their hands in their pockets.

As a result, Astra has just announced that it will not launch new Rocket 3 rockets in 2022, with efforts now focused on the next generation Rocket 4 launcher, a heavy launcher and therefore capable of carrying larger payloads. The start of construction of this launcher will be long since Astra does not foresee commercial operation before 2024. In the meantime, Astra’s turnover for next year will be ensured by the sale of small propulsion engines manufactured by Apollo Fusion, a startup acquired last year by Astra.