NEW LAUNCH TIME: Astra is presently targeting 1:50 p.m. EST (1850 GMT) to release its first Rocket booster from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with NASAs ElaNa 41 objective. The launch window goes through 4 pm ET (2100 GMT). Astra will release its first-ever mission from the Lower 48 on Saturday (Feb. 5), and you can watch the action live.The California start-up prepares to launch the ELaNa 41 mission from Floridas Cape Canaveral Space Force Station no earlier Monday at 1 p.m. EST (1910 GMT) during a three-hour window that closes at 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT). Watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of Astra, or directly by means of Astra and its livestream partner, NASASpaceFlight.com. Protection will start at 60 minutes prior to liftoff.Video: Watch Astras Rocket 3.2 launch on its 1st effective flightAstra, which was founded in 2016, intends to snag a big part of the small-satellite launch market with its line of mass-produced, ever-evolving and affordable rockets. The company has actually conducted four orbital launches to date, all of them test objectives that raised off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska. Astra reached space on 2 of those 4 missions. And on the most recent flight, a trial mission for the U.S. armed force that blasted off this previous November, the businesss 43-foot-tall (13 meters) Launch Vehicle 0007 (LV0007) made it to orbit– a big milestone for the Bay Area company. (An Astra rocket reached area throughout a December 2020 test flight however ran out of fuel soon prior to obtaining orbital velocity.) Saturdays launch will develop on that current success, notching several additional turning points if all goes according to strategy: ELaNa 41 will be Astras very first orbital objective from the Lower 48 states and its very first flight to bring functional satellites.Those spacecraft are 4 small cubesats flying by means of NASAs Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) initiative.An Astra rocket stands poised to release the ELaNa 41 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Liftoff is set up for Feb. 5, 2022. (Image credit: John Kraus on behalf of Astra) The Bama-1 cubesat, established by a group at the University of Alabama, will check a “drag sail” designed to reduce the area debris issue by assisting spacecraft deorbit in a controlled style at the end of their lives.New Mexico State Universitys Ionospheric Neutron Content Analyzer, or INCA, “will study the latitude and time reliances of the neutron spectrum in low Earth orbit for the very first time to enhance existing area weather models and mitigate threats to area and air-borne properties,” NASA officials wrote in an ELaNa 41 upgrade on Tuesday (Feb. 1). QubeSat, from the University of California, Berkeley, is a technology demonstration developed to evaluate how the space environment affects quantum gyroscopes. And NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston provided the R5-S1 cubesat, which will demonstrate tech that might help in-space inspection of satellites along with aid trailblaze ways to build little spacecraft rapidly and cheaply, NASA officials wrote.Previous reports had stated that the University of California, Berkeleys two-spacecraft CubeSat Radio Interferometry Experiment (CURIE) would be flying on ELaNa 41 also. But that appears not to be the case, based upon NASAs Tuesday update. Editors note: This story, initially published on Feb. 5, has been upgraded to include Astras brand-new launch target of Monday, Feb. 7. Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the look for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook..
NEW LAUNCH TIME: Astra is currently targeting 1:50 p.m. EST (1850 GMT) to release its first Rocket booster from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with NASAs ElaNa 41 objective. Protection will start at 60 minutes prior to liftoff.Video: Watch Astras Rocket 3.2 launch on its 1st effective flightAstra, which was established in 2016, intends to snag a large part of the small-satellite launch market with its line of mass-produced, ever-evolving and cost-effective rockets. Saturdays launch will develop on that recent success, notching a number of additional milestones if all goes according to plan: ELaNa 41 will be Astras very first orbital objective from the Lower 48 states and its first flight to carry operational satellites.Those spacecraft are 4 small cubesats flying by means of NASAs Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) initiative.An Astra rocket stands poised to launch the ELaNa 41 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
