Jonathan McDowell Profile picture
Astronomer commenting on space launches. Orbital Police. Personal account. All plots CC-BY. @planet4589 on Ma, bsky, etc.

Aug 28, 2021, 7 tweets

Astra rocket - looks like a problem at Max Q. Something fell off and then "Terminate Sent".

Launch failure confirmed. Fatal problem happened at 33 km altitude at 22:37:32 UTC, 2.5 min into flight. But amazing it got that far after the initial sideways skid at launch

Launch:

T+4s: oh, that doesn't look good

T+6 s: vertical again, but motion is all sideways...

T+18s, still sideways, but starting to climb. Are you kidding me?

T+22s: almost complete recovery, motion now vertical. Medal for most impressive save (albeit only temporary)

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