On Wednesday morning, a surprise email arrived in my inbox with the following subject line: “Astra Announces Department of Defense Contract Worth Up to $44 Million.”
I had to read it a second time to make sure I got it right. Astra, the launch company? Astra, whose valuation went from $2.6 billion to $25 million after a series of failed launches? Astra, the company that went public in July at 50 cents per share?
Yes, that was it That Astra.
This was indeed remarkable. To get some answers, I spoke to Astra co-founder Chris Kemp, who remains the company's CEO.
“If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you just don't give up,” Kemp said. “You know, if you give up easily, this isn't the place to be. Luckily, I'm surrounded by a team that chose not to give up.”
Rocket 4 becomes more real
I'll be honest: When Kemp and his co-founder, Adam London, took Astra private this summer, I never expected to hear from the company again. Astra certainly wasn't the first launch company to go bankrupt, and it won't be the last. But it is the first to seemingly resurrect itself in such a dramatic way.
To be clear: Astra is not back yet. The company is still in the phase of building and testing rocket stages and engines and does not have a launch vehicle ready to go. The new booster, Rocket 4, won't launch until the fourth quarter of 2025, Kemp said. (That date should probably be viewed with some skepticism).
The company has previously talked about Rocket 4, which aims to deliver 600kg to low Earth orbit, as early as August 2022. But at the time, most of the launch industry, including this reporter, shrugged their shoulders and went further. After all, the company's smaller vehicle, Rocket 3, failed in five of seven launch attempts into space. The general feeling was that the new rocket would never fly.
But even as Astra's finances deteriorated and the company had to avoid bankruptcy by putting it on the market, not everyone rejected this view. In April 2023, the US Space Force awarded a task order to Rocket 4 to launch the STP-S29B mission. That was interesting, but it was only one data point. Then came this week's announcement that the US Department of Defense's 'Defense Innovation Unit' had awarded a grant worth up to $44 million to Astra for a 'tactical responsive launch system'.
