Astra has failed to launch two NASA satellites into orbit

Astra, a rocket startup company, has had a second launch failure this year after its LV0010 launch vehicle failed to reach orbit with two NASA weather satellites on board. The upper stage shut down prematurely, and did not deliver the payloads to orbit. Astra announced via Twitter: "We have shared our regrets with NASA and the payload team. More information will be provided after we complete a full data review."

The mission was sponsored by NASA, which aims to place six TROPICS CubeSats into space. Those low-cost satellites were created to assist NASA in better tracking tropical storms as they form. It was the seventh launch of a small Astra rocket and the company's fifth failure. Sunday's launch was the first of three planned by NASA to launch six small CubeSat satellites, two in three orbital planes.

Given the somewhat risky nature of relying on a rocket with a very short track record, the $ 40 million project requires only four satellites and two successful launches to achieve the mission's goals. NASA's contract provides for the last two flights until the end of July. Whether Astra will be able to meet this schedule, given Sunday's failure, is unknown.

The goal of NASA TROPICS is to monitor the development of tropical storms in near real time, flying over hurricanes and other atmospheric phenomena every 45-50 minutes and transmitting data on temperature, precipitation, water vapor and cloud ice.

This ability to quickly revisit, that is, the time between satellite passages over a particular storm system, is intended to help scientists better understand how large storms develop, as well as help forecasters better predict the path and intensity.