Astra (aerospace)

Before being reincorporated as Astra Space Inc. in 2016, Ventions, LLC was a small San Francisco based aerospace research and design firm with a 10+ year history developing aerospace technology in partnership with NASA [8] and DARPA. Ventions was founded in 2005 and located at 1142 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103.

Following the 2016 reincorporation, Ventions, LLC. employees expanded to a new building at Naval Air Station Alameda, known as "Orion", due to its location at 1690 Orion Street, Alameda, CA 94501.[9][10] This former naval jet engine testing facility provided the ability to perform in-house single engine testing, as opposed to the former Ventions, LLC. test site at Castle Air Force Base. Due to Naval Air Station Alameda's vast retired runways, the company was able to perform full vehicle testing very close to their headquarters, eliminating the need for expensive and complex logistics for rocket testing.[11] However, this was diminished by choosing Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska (PSCA) as the only launch location.

During early to mid 2019, most non-test related employees moved from the Orion building into a new building at 1900 Skyhawk Street, Alameda, CA 94501,[12] known as "Skyhawk". This allowed a large expansion of a previously cramped machine shop, additional in house machining capabilities, and a rocket production line in anticipation of Rocket 3. Additionally, this building has a number of known chemical contaminants [13] due to its history as a Naval jet engine overhaul facility (Building 360)[12] and is now designated as part of Naval Air Station Alameda Superfund site.[14][15]

Two suborbital test flights were conducted in 2018 from Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska (PSCA): one on 20 July 2018 (Rocket 1.0), and one on 29 November 2018 (Rocket 2.0). Both were believed to be launch failures. However, Astra stated that both were successful and the second one was "shorter than planned".[16][3] Astra spent 2019 designing and building Rocket 3.0 integrating propulsion systems, avionics, and other pressurization/plumbing components into a high-performance electric pump-fed orbital launch vehicle.

From 2018 to 2020, Astra was a contender in the DARPA Launch Challenge; first, as one of three teams, although at this point Astra kept its involvement secret and was only referred to as "stealth startup" by the Challenge organizers. Then as the other two teams dropped out and remaining as the only team in the competition. The competition involved launching two small satellite payloads into orbit from two different launch sites in the U.S. with approximately two weeks between launches. Astra attempted to perform a launch for the Challenge in late February – early March 2020 from PSCA, but had to scrub the launch attempts and in the end, did not launch a rocket for the Challenge (due to faulty sensor data). With the competition's only remaining team (Astra) being unable to launch a rocket within the set time frame, DARPA announced the DARPA Launch Challenge closed on 2 March 2020 with no winner. The prize of US$12 million went unclaimed.[16]

In June 2020, the Department of Defense announced that it planned to award Astra (and five other companies) two commercial rideshare satellite launch contracts using funding provided through the CARES Act.[17]

On 11 September 2020, Astra attempted another orbital rocket launch, this time with their Rocket 3.1.[18] The rocket cleared the launchpad before tumbling and falling back to Earth, exploding on impact.[19]

In October 2020, Astra was selected by the U.S. Air Force's AFWERX program to pursue the development of their Rocket 5.0, although it was not clear if the selection was tied to a specific monetary award.[20]

On 15 December 2020, Astra's Rocket 3.2 nearly reached orbit after a launch from Kodiak, Alaska.[21]

On 2 February 2021, Astra announced they will be going public.[22]

• Rocket Lab
• Relativity Space
• Firefly Aerospace
• bluShift Aerospace

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Astra, Inc..

• Official website
• Astra on Twitter