Elsewhere in rocket news, Astra recently talked about the cause of the failure of the rocket used in the previous mission, LV0006, at the end of this past August. As you may recall, the rocket ignited its engines, tipped over, and hovered sideways until it burned enough propellant to finally lift off.

That impressive launch was caused by leaking fuel and oxidizer that got trapped inside the rocket. Yes, there was literally a pool of both fuel and oxidizer — a dangerous combination — hidden from view inside the rocket. Not surprisingly, the mixture ignited upon liftoff which caused an explosion that severed a cable and shut down one of the five engines just one second after ignition. This left the rocket with just enough thrust to hover, and the offset thrust caused the rocket to tip before its guidance system corrected, and the rocket rose to space after burning enough fuel to be light enough to do so.

After the failure, Astra made a few design changes to prevent this from happening again. The propellant system was redesigned to eliminate the source of the leaks. The rocket’s ground system now has the fuel and oxidizer quick disconnects on opposite sides of the rocket to prevent any propellant that does leak from mixing.  And the cover on the rocket that allowed the two propellants to pool and mix was removed.

You can hear about their successful orbital launch of LV0007, as well as all those other launches, tomorrow on Rocket Roundup.

More Information

Astra press release