Astra's Troubles Deepen
Astra announced last Friday that they had laid off a quarter of their workforce and reassigned others from launch vehicle to satellite propulsion development as its cash reserves dwindle.
In a series of statements, the company said it was making a “strategic reallocation of its workforce,” moving 50 engineers from development of its new Rocket 4 vehicle to production of its Astra Spacecraft Engine, while also laying off about 70 employees to reduce costs.
“We are intensely focused on delivering on our commitments to our customers, which includes ensuring we have sufficient resources and an adequate financial runway to execute on our near-term opportunities,” Chris Kemp, chief executive of Astra, said in a statement announcing the moves.
They recognize this is likely to slow progress on Rocket 4 but won't project
by how much. They said in a May 15 investors' call that they were not
abandoning the launch vehicle development but that they had...
...278 orders to date of the Astra Spacecraft Engine, an electric thruster based on technology it acquired from startup Apollo Fusion in 2021. Those orders have an overall value of $77 million, and the company said it expects a “substantial majority” of those engines will be delivered by the end of 2024.
One might conclude the orders on hand with the potential to bring in cash to keep them running have taken priority over Rocket 4.
Their financial difficulties aren't really news. The most recent mention I find I've made of them, from July 14, talked about them doing a "reverse stock split" to raise share prices as they issued new stock, and that there was "substantial doubt" about the company's ability to continue. Back in January when I did a re-stacking and re-writing of Ars Technica's piece on the US' Top 10 Launch Companies, it looked like they were in trouble.
Is this a death spiral or will they make it out of this? To use one of my favorite quotes, this one by Niels Bohr: "Prediction is very difficult. Especially if it's about the future."
Boeing's Next Starliner Test Flight is Off Until March '24
Boeing and NASA announced yesterday
that the next flight of Boeing's Starliner, the crewed test flight has been
pushed back to March of '24 as they continue troubleshooting the issues we've
covered here several times.
Boeing has delayed the first flight of its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle with astronauts on board to no earlier than March 2024 as the company continues to work on issues with the spacecraft’s parachutes and wiring.
There will be a single drop test of a spacecraft with the modified parachute hardware, currently estimated to be November '23. The potentially flammable tape issue will have a few different fixes available depending on how much has to be taken apart.
Virgin Galactic's Next Suborbital Flight Thursday
Galactic-02 is scheduled to fly a three-person crew, plus the Virgin Galactic astronaut instructor who trained them, plus two company pilots, on a flight to suborbital space on Thursday (Aug. 10).
A full rundown on the mission and the crews of both the suborbital Spaceship 2 and the aircraft that carries it to the required altitude can be found at the link just above.
Spaceship 2 during its first test flight. Photo Credit Virgin Galactic.
Sounds like Astra is indeed spiraling down. Will it be a death spiral or will it mean they concentrate on the in-space business to be successful (which is a very viable market) is the question. With the economy flustering scaling down isn't a bad idea. Especially with the possibility of Starship reducing cargo rates so much. Seriously, why build little ships when mega freighters are also being built?
ReplyDeleteAs to Starliner, I really hope that that thing never flies. It's been a constant lemon from day one.
And Virgin? Eh, so? That's just a vanity flight like taking that mini-sub to go see the Titanic. Hopefully Virgin won't have the same results. At least Virgin is doing maintenance and actually using science and such.
To share a secret here that nobody else will ever read ;-), I don't see how the market is big enough for the Virgin Galactic flights that it could support a business, so I'm kind of keeping an eye on them to see how long they last. Do they go bankrupt next year or just when?
DeleteIt looks like that this flight is being paid for by a group that wants to put diversity in space, except for one guy who might be paying for himself. Not to mention that half of the people on the flight are Virgin employees as well as the two flying the lifting airplane.
Same with the New Shephard flights. Really crappy business plan, only a limited number of suckers willing to cough up money for a 3 minute vomit rocket.
DeleteI remember when Virgin Galactic was supposed to be doing orbital space flights and using their space plane as a personnel transport to their space station. Or that's how the slick illustrations showed it. Of course, the plane was never designed to make orbital reentry, because that would require a whole 'nother level of construction and heat shielding.
Maybe VO will buy a manned Dreamcatcher, but if so, they'll still need to buy some sort of launch vehicle unless they use the ROC or their modified 747.