Astra’s rocket reaches orbit for the first time

Rocket launch opportunities 

A rocket launch from Astra recently sent the spacecraft into orbit. Known as LV0007, it lifted off from a site in Kodiak, Alaska. The company launched a small rocket that managed to take a payload for the USA Space Force. All in all, it appeared to be a successful mission, with the rocket reaching the target orbit in around nine minutes.

A difficult mission for Astra

While this mission was successful, the company failed many times to make it to orbit. The CEO of the company said on their webcast that this was an “incredibly hard thing to do”. People apparently had worked very hard for many years, going through many rocket launch iterations. Great camaraderie and passion helped make the project a success.

Dimensions and specifics

Astra’s rocket is around 43 feet tall, making it part of the small rocket market. The goal of Astra is to launch as many of these small rockets as they possibly can. They want to aim for one launch per day by 2025. At the moment, these rocket launch missions aren’t cheap – one rocket costs around $2.5 million, but the company hopes to drop this price point in the future.

Rocket launch merger

Earlier this year, Astra went public and completed a SPAC merger. This new business acquisition helped the company raise new funding to build small rockets and expand its facilities in California and Alameda. It must be very tough to compete in this market, however lucrative it may be, but one thing is for certain that Astra is trying incredibly hard to both create new rockets and facilitate launches. Hopefully, we’ll be hearing good launch news about this company in the near future.