2020-02-10 Bloomberg Businessweek

February 10, 2020

23

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

JASON

HENRY

FOR

BLOOMBERG

BUSINESSWEEK

◀ London (left) and

Kemp developed their

small-rocket startup in

secret for three years

◀ Astra is betting it can

launch a second rocket

from a Darpa-chosen

site within just a few

weeks

THEBOTTOMLINE If AstracancompletethePentagon’sLaunch

Challenge,it maybecomea crediblecompetitortoRocketLab,the

earlyleaderin thesmall-satellite-launchingbusiness.

$7.5 million a pop is too high and that the company’s

Electron rocket has been overengineered. Instead

of using carbon fiber for the rocket body and fancy

3D-printed parts as Rocket Lab does, Astra has stuck

with aluminum and simplified engines built with com-

montools.London’steamhastriedtomaketheAstra

radios,igniters,andeventherockettransportvehi-

clelow-cost,high-performing, and easy to re-create.

Alongside its rocket test building, Astra has been

assembling a 250,000-square-foot manufacturing facil-

ity that Kemp says will be able to churn out hundreds

of rockets a year. “Our strategy is to always focus on

the bottom line,” he says. “Nothing is sacred. We’re

able to profitably deliver payloads at $2.5 million per

launch, and our intent is to continue to lower that

price and increase the performance of our system.”

The proof is in the orbital launch. Most spaceflight

companies’ first crafts go boom in a bad way, but

RocketLabhasanalmostflawlesslaunchrecord.Beck,

a self-taughtrocketengineer,sayshisperfectionism

is a sellingpoint.“Ifsomeonewantstobuilda rocket

thatis superinaccurate,letthem,”hesays.“I’mnot

builttobuildshit.”Astra’sprevioustwolaunches,

eachofa smallerversionofitscurrentrocket,tum-

bledbackontotheKodiakcoastlinein2018,break-

ingapartinspectacularpyrotechnicdisplays.

“Thatis whatwasexpected,”Kempsays.“Many

ofourobjectivesonthoselauncheswereachieved,

andI guaranteewecouldn’thavebuiltourorbital

rocketinthreeyearsif theteamhadn’tbenefited

fromthatexperience.”Londonis morecircumspect—

but comparably optimistic. “I did expect or at least

hoped we would be in orbit by now,” he says. “But

outside of things being a little harder than you would

like, the broad direction and slope of things line up

pretty well with our original plan.”

To win the $12 million, Astra will need to place a

satellite of Darpa’s choosing into the right orbit. The

Pentagon agency will then select another launch

site—probably somewhere in California, Florida, or

Virginia—and give Astra a few weeks to get a fresh

rocket to the new launchpad. It would be an incred-

ibly quick turnaround for an industry in which 6 to

12 months is a typical time span needed to calibrate

the specifics around new launch sites and payloads.

Astra has several rocket bodies awaiting the chal-

lenge on its Alameda factory floor. Kemp says the

company has signed contracts for more than a dozen

launches with paying customers, and it plans to cre-

ate a launchpad in the Marshall Islands to match

the one in Alaska. So far, he says, there are no plans

to launch directly from the Alameda Pottery Barn.

�Ashlee Vance