After Astra's first rocket launch from Florida failed to deliver NASA payloads to orbit, the company says an initial investigation reveals an electrical issue was the cause of the mishap.
Astra's Rocket 3.3 launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base on Feb. 10, carrying four CubeSats under NASA's Venture Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 contract. However, after the rocket reached orbit, cameras on the vehicle showed it spinning out of control, and Astra later said the CubeSats did not deploy.
"We are deeply sorry to our customers NASA, University of Alabama, University of New Mexico and UC Berkeley," the company said in a statement after the payloads were lost.Astra has been investigating the incident along with the Federal Aviation Administration. Griggs said the rocket nose cone or fairings did not fully open before the upper stage ignition because of an electrical issue.
The root cause was due to an error in the engineering drawing for the fairing harness, according to Astra. While the harness was installed as instructed the drawing has errors leading to two channels being swapped.
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