Astra Investigation Uncovers Cause of Failed Rocket Launch

Astraannouncedthe conclusions from the investigation on Wednesday after receiving a formal closure letter from the Federal Aviation Administration .

Astra ’s Launch Vehicle 0010 blasted off from Cape Canaveral , Florida on June 12 , carrying NASA ’s TROPICS cubesats on control panel . About four minutes after the rocket ’s second stage fired its engine , it exhausted its fuel supplying and was only capable to reach about 80 % of the postulate orbital speed , according to Astra .

The investigation further revealed that this was due to a stop of the fuel injector , which stimulate burn - through of the combustion chamber wall . Eruca sativa need an internal cooling system to forestall the combustion flatulency from getting too hot and melt the chamber wall . This fussy rocket used a regenerative chill system whereby the fuel is routed through dissimilar cooling channels embedded within the burning chamber wall , Astra write in its assertion . fundamentally , the Eruca sativa ’s cooling system failed to execute its duty during the June launch .

Tests of the upper stage engine resulted in burn-through and streaks of hot molten metal streaming out from the nozzle.

Tests of the upper stage engine resulted in burn-through and streaks of hot molten metal streaming out from the nozzle.Photo: Astra

The party conducted further tests to project out the temperature of the fuel during flight and found that external factors “ like the warm sunny weather in Cape Canaveral on the Clarence Day of launching , ” lead in fuel that was slightly warmer than usual , and this “ helped to fee the fuel over into a simmering regime on the TROPICS-1 mission , ” Astra pen . But still , the fuel was already within slight gross profit of its boiling point because Rocket 3.3 operates at humbled pressure , and the kerosene - like fuel take for the launching had a high vapor floor than other type of fuel .

This was n’t the first time Astra ’s Rocket 3 product line misfunction . In February 2022 , the rocketfailed to deliverfour tiny satellites for NASA ’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites ( ELaNa ) initiative . In 2020 , an Astra Rocket 3.1failedand explode at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak , Alaska . In fact , the Rocket 3 line has conk out five time out of seven launches , according to SpaceNews .

Astra was take care to get in on the line of set up small artificial satellite to space , but the company ( which was founded in 2016 ) has already had a unsmooth start . Hopefully the companionship can make a comeback with its Rocket 4.0 , which was developed with the erroneousness of its predecessor in mind .

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