Footage obtained by TechCrunch shows the catastrophic ending that Astra’s Rocket 3.0 suffered during prelaunch testing in March 2020. The explosion, which occurred at Alaska’s Pacific Spaceport Co
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. Happy South by Southwest week for all who celebrate. On to the news.
Astra Space, the launch company that went public in 2021 at a $2.1 billion valuation, is going private again after months of burning cash and failing to secure alternate investment. The company announ
Astra founders Chris Kemp and Adam London have proposed taking the company private, with the two saying they would acquire all the outstanding stock themselves, according to a filing with the U.S. Sec
Astra has been thrown a critical lifeline in the form of new debt financing, which provides the company with a little more time to find funding to stave off catastrophe. The company said on Monday tha
Two years ago, Astra hailed its acquisition of satellite propulsion startup Apollo Fusion as a strategic move that would round out its launch business and bring expert engineers into the fold. But und
Astra has laid off 25% of its workforce since the beginning of the quarter and is reallocating at least 50 engineers and manufacturing staff away from its launch business to focus on spacecraft produc
Astra is carving out its spacecraft engine business as a wholly owned subsidiary, a corporate restructuring that will provide greater flexibility in hiring and financing, according to documents viewed
Astra’s new Rocket 4 launch vehicle will use Ursa Major’s Hadley liquid engine to power its upper stage, the two companies announced Monday. Astra has been tight-lipped about the new upper-stage e
Space company Astra’s management team is undergoing another shake-up. The company said Friday that chief engineer Benjamin Lyon has resigned after just short of two years in the role. Rather than se
NASA has found a new launch provider for its extreme weather observation satellites. The agency announced Wednesday that it has selected Rocket Lab to launch its Time-Resolved Observations of Precipit
Astra, a rocket startup that went public last year, told investors Tuesday it laid off 16% of its workforce as part of a wider strategy to increase shrinking financial runway and decrease expenses. Th
Astra is bringing on Silicon Valley veteran Axel Martinez as its new chief financial officer, a C-suite change that in many ways demarcates a new chapter for the space company. Martinez’s career inc
Rocket launch company Astra will no longer send the remaining NASA TROPICS payloads to space, but instead will launch other “comparable” scientific missions for the agency, the company announced W
Astra CEO Chris Kemp told investors Thursday that the company will be no longer launch payloads with its current lightweight vehicle, Rocket 3, and will instead re-manifest all launches on a considera
Rocket launch company Astra isn’t starting out with the best track record, after its latest mission for NASA ended in failure — just a few months after its last rocket carrying payloads for the ag
In a time when every rocket launch is livestreamed on YouTube, millions of people get a front row seat to a space company’s successes and failures. Astra, a rocket startup-turned-public company, has
Hi folks, welcome back to Max Q. This week we have news on rockets both small (Astra’s Rocket 3.3) and very, very large (NASA’s Space Launch System). Plus further fallout from Russia’
Space startup-turned-public-company Astra reached orbit for a second time, in its debut mission for new customer Spaceflight Inc. It’s a big win for the launch company. Astra reached orbit for the f
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