Astra rocket failure, 2 NASA satellites lost

[Makuser]

Last Sunday afternoon I went out shopping for some groceries after 1pm. When I got out of the store I realized that I had missed a rocket launch to photograph from my back yard.
But the entire launch was amiss. An Astra rocket carrying two small hurricane-tracking satellites for NASA failed to reach orbit Sunday (June 12) after a major malfunction shortly after liftoff. The first two NASA TROPICS cubesats to study hurricanes were lost in the launch failure. The upper-stage engine shut down early and did not deliver the payloads into orbit, and the satellites went down in the eastern Atlantic just west of Senegal, Africa (from another news source). You can read more about this mission, the delays for the liftoff, and the purpose of the satellites here, at:
https://www.space.com/astra-rocket-laun ... lites-lost

[Unitron48]

Sorry to hear! These failures cost everyone big time!!

Dave

[smp]

Wow. Another tough blow to that small launch company. It is bad enough to have failures when testing, but losing a payload must be really bad - for both the launch company and the customer.

smp

[helicon]

Oh No! Bad news indeed Marshall. It just goes to show you that nothing is perfect.