Fell to Earth along with the rocket. Private company Astra destroyed four NASA satellites

All satellites lost as a result of the rocket disaster were non-commercial, and were intended for educational programs.

–

The CEO of private space company Astra “deeply regrets” that he was unable to deliver NASA payload into orbit. Four small satellites were lost when an Astra rocket failed to launch them. informs Sky News.

Four small, low-cost CubeSats were launched by Astra from California on Thursday, February 10, 2022, but minutes later, the company’s rocket went out of control and fell back to Earth.

“We had a problem during today’s flight,” CEO Chris Kemp confirmed on Twitter: “I’m sorry we couldn’t deliver our customer’s payload.”

No further details about the cause of the failure were made public, but the mission’s live feed showed a problem with the way the rocket’s upper stage separated from the booster.

The contract was awarded as part of NASA’s demonstration of a venture-class launch that is designed for “a higher level of risk than larger missions.”

As the top rung fell, so did Astra’s share price, first by 5%, causing trading to halt, and then closing 26% lower as trading reopened.

Astra has previously made four orbital launch attempts, the first three of which failed. The fourth was successful but carried no payload.

What are cubesats?

“CubeSats are playing an increasingly important role in research, technology demonstrations, research and education missions at NASA,” the space agency said in a statement.

During the pandemic, when access to NASA facilities was limited, space agency employees operated their Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter CubeSat from home.

The failed launch on Thursday, February 11, 2022 consisted of four small satellites as part of NASA’s ELaNa 41 educational mission.

NASA describes ELaNa as “an exciting initiative” to attract and retain students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The goal is to build tiny cubic satellites out of blocks with a side as small as 10cm, although satellites can be made up of two, three or six blocks, each weighing less than 1.33kg, according to NASA.

Three of the lost satellites were created by universities and one by NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

All CubeSats launched under the program are experimental and not commercial.

Focus previously reported that NASA fears grow over 30,000 satellites Elon Musk, which he is going to launch into orbit as part of SpaceX missions – they can interfere with the launch of rockets from the US space agency.

satellites Starlink in the amount of $12 million were destroyed recently during a space storm, de-orbiting and burning up in the atmosphere.

Exciting imagery of Jupiter’s moons turned out to be genuine.

–