I recently retired after 46 yrs in NASA; and I just want to say I respect the hell out of Astra just based on this launch yesterday and how they handled it as well. The fact that they had an almost immediate engine out inches above the pad- yet the vehicle recovered itself & took itself safely out of the area- speaks volumes as to the quality of the overall system engineering of the vehicle to me. Additionally, their openness on the livestream was simply outstanding, and I hope it continues, and in fact is replicated by other companies. Because here a new- and publicly-traded - company, was going live, and not only was fine overall system engineering on display in event of a major anomaly; but the immediate open-ness and appearance of the CEO - standing in front of the very next rocket to be launched - is to be applauded! As someone who has been thru lots and lots of launches - including a fatal one - my hats are off to these folks. How one conducts himself when bloodied says a lot, and both systems-wise, and corporate-wise, what Saturday’s bloody nose said about Astra is very positive.
I Hope Someone Makes a Plaque of This Observation and Comment ,For Future Retro History Observance, of Hopefully a Very Deservedly and Successful Rocket Engineering Corporation!🇺🇸🚀🌎🌍🌏🌌
Thanks for that Dave. Very insightful bit of banter there. My respect for Astra increased after reading your informed viewpoint. If it were easy to launch a rocket, everybody'd be doing it.
Thumbs up to Astra. "How one conducts himself when bloodied says a lot, and both systems-wise, and corporate-wise" Yes. Worked in aerospace companies and some are grace under fire. One exception cough boing cough boing cough has a habit of making excuses and ball and cup the data. Maybe some can live with that. Most don't. Especially when there are lives on the line. "How are we going to get the the Moon if we can't talk between two or three building?" Virgil 'Gus' Grissom "They can't hear a thing you're saying." Edward 'Ed' White II Apollo 1, January 27 1967, 6:30PM Kennedy Space Center.
I think the fact that the rocket survived the loss of an engine right at the start, righted itself and went up, up, and away speaks volumes to the quality of their programming and nuzzle vectoring / control. That rocket has had the trial by fire and while it did not reach orbit, it survived (for a time). That's what Astra should be remembered for: Rockets that just won't go boom.
Despite the loss of an engine, I'd still consider this launch a win just because it recovered kind of and kept the rest of the rocket in a sort of safe state. Imagine this with a cargo that did have an escape & recovery system (like a crew capsule) and the rocket behaving like this would mean that the cargo (crew) would be safe. Before now and maybe excluding space-x with their powered landings knowledge, I would fully expect any rocket to have slammed into the ground in a big fireball. Really shows that they are on the right track and might one day become one of the new big space launch competitors.
Agreed. From a software engineering / architecture perspective: An amazing accomplishment to be able to compensate core hardware failure in spit seconds.
Scotland has a SPACE "PORT" 🤔 but I have only a Prize in Physics FIRED from Porsche with pneumonia 2020 - My QUESTION be this how TALL must a rocket be powered by Whisky and what PROOF can ye offer?
This has got to be the first time I've seen a rocket failure and ended up trusting the company more instead of less It's insane that it stayed so stable and controllable after losing an engine at launch
SpaceX once sent a payload to the ISS on a Falcon-9 that became a Falcon-8 after an engine exploded out the side of the rocket. They won two military contracts shortly after.
The fact it was able to correct for a lost engine and still keep the pointy end straight up and continue to (eventually) launch may be more impressive than if everything worked perfect. Rockets launch perfectly all the time. I've never seen one malfunction this bad and still continue on.
You have a great point! I also thought about the launch director and his team who could’ve panicked and self destructed it on or in the launch pad environment. They kept control of the situation even when it was out of control. I know good and well I would’ve been Mr Trigger Happy and pushed the big red button as soon as crap started to hit the fan. 🤣
Agree if it was any old generation rocket the failure would of been an instant fireball on the pad. Instead they were able to save all the launch equipment and still get some useful data out of it without risking anyone's safety.
It's really a remarkable successful flight! Knowing that you still flew with a serious failure has to be good news. Wonder if they had a realistic weight dummy payload?
Sprinkle in there a little bit of luck too. Lucky that the remaining 4 engines had enough power to keep it aloft till it got lighter by burning up some fuel and finally gained enough altitude. hehe
@@M0ng0l0id - Good observation. On the other hand, if the middle one failed instead, it would have probably hovered on the lunch pad for a while (or worse). lol
@@mollybeam_ - Hmm not sure why I remember seeing a middle engine, it must have been another rocket. It's interesting to note, that a single engine failure has brought the thrust to weight ratio to just 1 (from a 1.2). It's a miracle that it was even able to hover till it lost enough fuel weight.
My favorite call was actually, "Approaching nominal (downrange) trajectory." Meaning the guidance system was able to get the rocket back to not only vertical, but also close to nominal even after that severe of a deviation. That's actually very impressive.
@@samsonguy10k My main problem in KSP is my rockets are so damn huge (because of RSS) that they're hard to maneuver and sometimes my gravity turn won't be aggressive enough, or sometimes too aggressive. It's hard maneuvering a rocket 2x the size of the Delta IV heavy and weighing about the same as a navy cruiser.
Not just flawlessly, it's relentless af. Just as Protons system - to the point of being suicidal - "they tell me pointy end to the center of the earth, so be it!"
"SpaceX. SpaceY." I nearly died lol Also, it just seems that Astra is playing KSP, no big deal. Engine breaks? Loss of thrust? Let's see how far it goes!
He had posted the joke to Twitter earlier, that’s probably why it was shown but not mentioned. Also this particular video was about the details of the launch rather than the jokes.
Honestly props to Astra for how they handled this. The transparency was great and they deserved a great flight, but hell if this wasn’t a good demonstration of their control systems and guidance!
Honestly, I see this as a fantastic success in terms of testing their rockets, they learned that their fault tolerance is definitely up to snuff, and that their control software can handle some truly ridiculous stuff!
Yeah, the fact that if this were a real mission with a manned capsule as payload that everyone would have walked away disappointed, but perfectly fine does them great credit. "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing" as the saying goes. Broadly speaking, it wasn't even a failure as the mission was to sacrifice an expendable test rocket in exchange for troubleshooting and performance data. That's still 100% a successful mission even if the data you got back wasn't the data you were expecting.
how you handle failure and problems says more about your team than how it handles a "sucess". My estimation of the Astra team..." Hmm can I afford to buy stock, let me raid the piggy bank"
That wasn't really a 'failure', that was 'a cracked motor-bell, and then an EXTENSIVE test of the emergency-guidance system programming under extremely-adverse conditions'. And then it simply...completed its scheduled launch. Wow. That is good design, and (exceptionally) sensible coding of their software/systems. ...oh, good thought. Lemme look up what their stock is doing right now 'cause...THAT was amazing.
There was an Atlas launch from around 1960 which more or less went the same way and got up to a decent altitude before it tumbled and blew up. A video of that failure is around somewhere on RUclips. I saw Astra doing that and the Atlas failure was the first thing I thought of.
Mad respect to ASTRA for designing a rocket that could actually have an engine explode on the pad and still reach 27 km altitude. That is some robust fault tolerance right there.
Absolute props to Astra for being able to keep their launch site intact and gathering as much valuable data as possible, best case scenario in a failure mode IMO
@@AveragePicker as opposed to a successful launch that expends all fuel them falls into the ocean like is historically done? So you think each booster has a dedicated tank and one didn't empty ?
Many KSP players can relate to accidentally messing up the staging and losing an engine or two at launch, but still rebounding and making it most of the way up...
@@KertaDrake Yeah this is extremely impressive to me lol. One of my rockets recently had messy fuel lines so two of the side tanks were only feeding to the engines below them and not the central engine.. I saw the disparity in fuel consumption rates in my staging window and knew it was a fatal error :( Astra's rocket would have been able to handle it if only the TWR was high enough.
@@seedmole I just had a rescue mission launch where I was set to decouple my 4 sustainers partway through my rendezvous vector (approx. 200km -> 2Mm, decoupling at ~ 500km). I only realized the complication that added as the stage was coming close, but decided to run with it. I decoupled, continued to burn at full with my final engine, and immediately wondered why my navball started spinning around. In the darkness of space, I finally realized that one of the engines hadn't detached properly, and was still hanging on by the radial decoupler, spinning around in circles. It took me a while to get it shaken off, and all that confusion cost me a lot of fuel. In the end, I still had enough juice to reach poor Mitlock Kerman in his lonely passenger cabin, and was able to invite him in for tea and sandwiches. But reaching him took all the fuel I had. I had enough monoprop to get my periapsis down to 100km, but that was it. So close to home, and still so far. So now I'm trying to earn all the science I can to unlock the Klaw, to send another rescue mission up there to either push them down or fill their monoprop tanks so they can do it themselves :D Ain't KSP an adventure?
Controlled asymmetric thrust is difficult, so the fact that they were able to control this event in such an impressive manner is a testament to their engineering and guidance system teams
Piss-taking aside (and there's been plenty), fair play to Astra. Yes it was a failure, but it was a well-managed failure that ended up getting useful data and a non-catastrophic ending. Demonstrating and practicing good failure-response will be useful experience for the team and put them in better standing with the regulator in the future. If everyone nods sagely when Elon Musk says SpaceX learns as much from failures as successes, then we should extend the same response to Astra.
Oh totally! This is a stunning example of learning from failures, and moving away from catastrophes. As plenty of comments said, this would have been a serious dilemma in the old days of rocketry, with the rocket either self destructing when the thrust was all wrong, or it careening off the pad and into the ground at takeoff speeds. The fact it righted itself and adjusted for a failure to ignite/instant flame out is extremely impressive, and shows that astra is learning from mistakes in the past, and will likely continue to learn from experiences like this.
Fantastic propaganda piece on Elon "the cleverest person in the room, regardless of which room he's in" Musk in today's Observer (200+ yo British newspaper). Apparently Musk is "terrible at public relations". The irony!
1. One of the most interesting launches in history. 2. Incredible guidance system in the face of a major malfunction. 3. No collateral damage. 4. They're going to learn a ton from this. I'd call that a success.
One day when Astra finally accomplishes their objective and flies their rocket to operational status, I hope they keep these videos as part of their montage, much like what SpaceX did with their failures.
This could well be one of those rare vocabulary-changing days. I'd say that the launch we witnessed was the first time one could use the phrase "epic fail" in a positive way. Things went wrong in the first second, and the original objective was immediately doomed, but they kept going as well as they could and ended up collecting a lot of experience which a perfect launch couldn't have given them. It was indeed epic. "The little rocket that almost could." Mad respect for Scott Manley, too. He joked about the launch, but never in an insulting way. "Things went sideways." "Good thing the gate was still open." "Rockets use most of their fuel to accumulate horizontal v, Astro just started a little early." "Fiery end down, pointy end up" (sounds like a quote from "Upgoer 5" for bonus points) [ "Homer disappearing into the hedge" meme ]
Rockets are hard, no shame to Astra for an early test flight failing. But the fact that it kept control and managed to get that amount of flight time rather than a RUD on the pad was very impressive. Kudos to the team 👍
Astra's new slogan "Sideways is the new Up!" Their next launch will be from an enclosed hangar, the rocket will exit sideways through the door, then up-up and away. lol
I honestly think that Astra shouldn't be too upset about this. A rocket in development is going to have failures, but this is a spectacular demonstration of the guidance system's capabilities.
Agreed, I hope it doesn't hurt them financially, it's pretty impressive that their rocket could keep itself upright and moving upwards, even with an engine disabled.
I'd think that this early in development, they'd _want_ failures. You can learn more from failure than success, especially when you have a lot to learn. And better that the failures happen now than when they've been trusted with payloads.
Yes, "negative velocity" is definitely NOT something you want to see when looking at your guidance screen.. On the plus side, they did get their field plowed.
@Tano And Kangaroo's can't walk at all. They can only hop/jump or crawl forward. They can only change direction when they're in the air with their powerful muscles in their tails. And this rocket lost an Engine looking like a small tail, on the camra aimed at Earth. Strange world indeed. :p
I am impressed they contained that engine's explosion without it taking out the other 4, that's a good sign for safety. The N1 launches failed due to cascading engine failure.
@AntiangelRaphael Very finely calibrated control system there. It kept the rocket stable despite it missing one engine in a corner and having stuff dangling off the side. That's a LOT of asymmetric drag at speed.
Apparently, the motor did not explode but had shut itself down possibly due to an explosion in the piping / raceway nearby. But this is still all conjecture.
the launch was incredibly hilarous to watch.. 100points for effort for sure. i mean this must be the launch with the highest amount of gravity losses in the history of rocketry that still went up🤣
No, the telemetry itself looked robust enough. It was simply computing the distance between the intended (upwards) trajectory vector and the (lateral) movement vector. And, at the beginning, that meant negative speed values.
That was the only launch goal attained by Astra. The Astra Engineering Director was overheard after launch " C'mon guys, whats the problem this isnt rocket science!" Engineering person "Uhh boss, I think you may be wrong on that one "
next Astra launch: rocket noclips into the ground, turns into a slinky, freezes for a minute, then explodes, sending pieces flying at light speed in all directions. Revert to Launch (1s ago) Revert to Vehicle Assembly (2s ago) Cancel
Their next launch could be from an enclosed hangar, takes up sideways through the doors then up it goes. Never mind burning up a bunch precious fuel in the process. lol
So, it had a critical failure at one of the most critical phases, lift off. And yet, it was able to "recover" from a complete standstill with an engine failure, and flight away. That to me is a big success test launch, awesome controls!
@@thomasboese3793 Meanwhile, at Boeing, they can’t get a sensor reading right, a timer to keep correct track of time or a valve sequencing system to work….
Honestly, this is far from a failure. Losing an engine can happen to every rocket, even the ones with the most successful flight history, but they managed to move it away from the pad and aborted the mission safely. To me thats a win, especially in a prototyping stage, and I hope the shareholders see it like that too.
You've gotta admire their control systems that can keep the rocket upright with an engine failure right at liftoff. As was said about Apollo 13, it's a successful failure. I suspect Astra will learn a lot from this flight.
SpaceX has shown that it is ok to fail as long as we learn something. Astra has earned respect for being open and sharing live, as well as demonstrating great capabilities of hardware and software with that rocket managing to go up so far under challenging circumstances.
No. When the launch starts going sideways it is the duty of the range safety officer to terminate the flight. No exceptions, even if it means he gets fired. So you have to clean up the launch area? That's what it's there for, an empty area with no residents!! If something is going wrong, and it OBVIOUSLY IS, you do not know what else will go wrong. The range safety comm channel might go next, and then the nav system, and it lands in the middle of Los Angeles or whatever city and kills a thousand people. ABSOLUTELY IRRESPONSIBLE and they should be SHUT DOWN, the fools.
@@woodybrison Sigh. It was still heading in a direction that was on the same horizontal trajectory as if it had been functional, so it was safe to keep flying it. It would have been terminated the second the rocket turned back towards a city . These people know what they're doing.
It was an excellent broadcast and I think despite its failure ASTRA has gained a lot of fans. Twas a noble fight to get off the ground when down an engine. 😎👍 Quite a gimble success in this regard.
@@MouseGoat They may have gained a lot of fans but they rely on share holders :( It is probably fortunate that this happened on a Saturday while the stock market is closed and panicky investors have time to cool off before throwing their towels in the ring.
@@iamjadedhobo I'd be more apt to invest now than before. A rocket engine can fail. A craft that can recover from it, and still fly part of the way is, so far, exceptional.
@@joesterling4299 Agree! At the very least, it shows two things: (1) the avionics software is well-written, and (2) the initial 'explosion' was somewhat contained so it doesn't damage the other engines and/or the superstructure. Also, their decision to keep the rocket alight as long as possible even after reaching a safe zone to ditch, for the purposes of gathering as much data as possible, that's good engineering mindset. Better luck next time, Astra, I'm now rooting for you!
Crazy Respect to the software designers and the speed the gimbaling hardware reacted that kept it vertical when it went sideways. That’s some fierce processing that compensating to keep it pointing upwards and not just toppling with an engine out so soon after launch.
Wow, that's one tough rocket. Surviving a substantial explosive event within the enclosure and still making serious altitude. That things gonna be a beast for its size. Best wishes Astra team. Dr. Scott always has these great analytics. :)
I would argue that it isn't that bad a result for them. It shows how good their guidance and gimballing is. Just about any other rocket would have fallen over and taken out the pad.
@@scowell They may not have flown well, but in the end they did fly safe enough--managed not to crash the thing on the pad or into land, and managed to splash it down into one of the exclusion zones. It's impressive that they were able to avoid a worse problem. Guessing their post-mortem will probably include: "On a positive note, our automated guidance system worked well here."
I'm impressed, that their flight systems adjusted to the incident so smoothly. Handling a sudden loss of power, and the rocket lurching to the side without ending up as a pile of flaming garbage on the launch pad is actually impressive.
I imagine the amount of good data about guidance will be a positive out of this. I also like the statement “you learn more from a failure than a success” also … you just have to make use of that! 🙂
Unironically this would have gone seriously wrong without that open gate - which makes it funny, depressing, face-palming and makes one laugh and cry at the same time
@@thulyblu5486 To commemorate this, all of their future pre-launch checklists should have a "Verify launch pad access gate open status" line that everyone would seriously check as a part of the countdown.
Was going to post exactly this. That feeling when you didn't put enough engines on your KSP rocket and it sits on the pad burning fuel until it gets light enough to start going up haha.
The „Space Y” and Homer disappearing jokes made my day. An incredibly interesting video and good explanation. Hope Astra succeeds with the next launch.
Well, when it comes to Astra, Tim Dod is going to have to add another check to his list, not only will he be confirming that the flamey end is down and the pointy end is up, he also going to have to check to see if the gate is open ready for launch.
"the computer onboard does the whole flamey end thing down and pointy end up" ... love it! Describing an advanced navigation system into a child's book. :)
This launch harkens back to the Falcon 1 launches where interesting mishaps like the rocket crashing back onto the shed where they prepped the rocket. An entertaining anomaly for sure.
@@james-faulkner "von kerman" is a character from kerbal space program; you're thinking of von braun, the real life hero of nasa's space program with the, uh, questionable history.
@@andreipendle1778 nah, the worse part was the manufacturing process. many more people (concentration camp laborers) were killed by the v2 before it was launched than after.
Sometimes it takes a mishap to happen just to prove how reliable your safety systems are. It may not have been a successful launch but I'm sure they got some pretty amazing data from it nonetheless.
Considering how often early rockets tended to take off for 1 second, then fall over and explode, this is still a win. I'm super impressed that the flight computer kept it upright and actually got the rocket to fly even with a main engine failure like that.
PLEASE note the latching failure on the bottom right of the video .. the flash and the latch/catch is the piece that damaged the skirt that falls off at the onboard cam view towards the first stage engine . The latch failure is what tilted the craft initially before it is overcome by thrust .
@Email Subjekt hey, when trolling you can't go too hard or people realize and just laugh at you. Less dumb next time and you'll have more success buddy
The poor guidance system fighting against it's inevitable doom reminds me of that one time a small cold gas thruster on a Falcon 9 valiantly tried to keep the rocket from tipping over after landing. Great idea to allow NSF to do the livestream!
@@gothboschincarnate3931 yes, but the guidance system did it's best to keep the rocket upright and even taking it upward. Without it's heroic struggle, the rocket would turned and crashed into the pad almost immediately because of the asymmetrical thrust.
@@voidstarq Normally, yes, but you can easily change them around if you so desire. As long as we never see SpaceZ (which I think would be like SpaceY but with the rocket coming straight towards the camera), we'll be fine.
@@voidstarq In reference frames that move along with a vehicle (for example describing the environment of a plane, rocket or car from the vehicle's point of view), x is usually pointing out the vehicle front.
@@voidstarq Yeah, of course you're correct on that - But even with the variables inverted (wich you can do, as others explained), the comparison was really funny in my opinion ;)
That was impressive as hell, I can't believe it handled that catastrophic event so well, respect guys, things go wrong but it's rare that they showcase rarely-seen capabilities like this!!! 👌 I love how much information you give us at a level I can understand btw - thanks!
Scott, any chance 1 engine out performance was designed to be 1:1 thrust/weight at max weight? I mean its got 5 engines, right? Probably not a controlling factor to the design, but handy in this case. Kudos to Astra, space is hard.
you only have to wait very small amounts of times for Mr. Manley to explain the day's rocket happenings. most reliable and concise rocket channel on youtube
Eh, good on them for sticking with it. They've still made it closer to orbit than BO.
3 года назад+1
Blue Origin’s current rocket (New Shepard) is not made for orbit. The huge orbital rocket is called New Glenn and I hope they can launch it «soon». Space X really needs some serious competition.
@ That "huge orbital rocket" hasn't passed the mock-up stage of development, yet. Additionaly they are probably years away from flight operational BE4 engines now with the majority of skilled engineers leaving that god forsaken company.
I recently retired after 46 yrs in NASA; and I just want to say I respect the hell out of Astra just based on this launch yesterday and how they handled it as well. The fact that they had an almost immediate engine out inches above the pad- yet the vehicle recovered itself & took itself safely out of the area- speaks volumes as to the quality of the overall system engineering of the vehicle to me. Additionally, their openness on the livestream was simply outstanding, and I hope it continues, and in fact is replicated by other companies. Because here a new- and publicly-traded - company, was going live, and not only was fine overall system engineering on display in event of a major anomaly; but the immediate open-ness and appearance of the CEO - standing in front of the very next rocket to be launched - is to be applauded! As someone who has been thru lots and lots of launches - including a fatal one - my hats are off to these folks. How one conducts himself when bloodied says a lot, and both systems-wise, and corporate-wise, what Saturday’s bloody nose said about Astra is very positive.
I Hope Someone Makes a Plaque of This Observation and Comment ,For Future Retro History Observance, of Hopefully a Very Deservedly and Successful Rocket Engineering Corporation!🇺🇸🚀🌎🌍🌏🌌
Also brilliantly-written software.
Congrats on 46 years. My BIL is still toiling away at JPL.
They were much more forthcoming than the situation was after the Dragon test explosion at KSC a couple years ago.
Thanks for that Dave. Very insightful bit of banter there. My respect for Astra increased after reading your informed viewpoint. If it were easy to launch a rocket, everybody'd be doing it.
Thumbs up to Astra.
"How one conducts himself when bloodied says a lot, and both systems-wise, and corporate-wise"
Yes. Worked in aerospace companies and some are grace under fire. One exception cough boing cough boing cough has a habit of making excuses and ball and cup the data. Maybe some can live with that. Most don't. Especially when there are lives on the line.
"How are we going to get the the Moon if we can't talk between two or three building?" Virgil 'Gus' Grissom
"They can't hear a thing you're saying." Edward 'Ed' White II
Apollo 1, January 27 1967, 6:30PM Kennedy Space Center.
I think the fact that the rocket survived the loss of an engine right at the start, righted itself and went up, up, and away speaks volumes to the quality of their programming and nuzzle vectoring / control.
That rocket has had the trial by fire and while it did not reach orbit, it survived (for a time). That's what Astra should be remembered for: Rockets that just won't go boom.
Nuzzle control was confused by a boop at the start
Despite the loss of an engine, I'd still consider this launch a win just because it recovered kind of and kept the rest of the rocket in a sort of safe state. Imagine this with a cargo that did have an escape & recovery system (like a crew capsule) and the rocket behaving like this would mean that the cargo (crew) would be safe.
Before now and maybe excluding space-x with their powered landings knowledge, I would fully expect any rocket to have slammed into the ground in a big fireball.
Really shows that they are on the right track and might one day become one of the new big space launch competitors.
@@benbaselet2026 it was more than a boop. it lost an engine on launch.
@@kasuraga It was a big boop.
Agreed. From a software engineering / architecture perspective: An amazing accomplishment to be able to compensate core hardware failure in spit seconds.
One could hardly ask for a better illustration of everything going sideways.
🤣
if only it had done this while lying sideways
100% Win Comment, made my night. Cheers! :D
Scotland has a SPACE "PORT" 🤔 but I have only a Prize in Physics FIRED from Porsche with pneumonia 2020 - My QUESTION be this how TALL must a rocket be powered by Whisky and what PROOF can ye offer?
Slideways
This has got to be the first time I've seen a rocket failure and ended up trusting the company more instead of less
It's insane that it stayed so stable and controllable after losing an engine at launch
SpaceX once sent a payload to the ISS on a Falcon-9 that became a Falcon-8 after an engine exploded out the side of the rocket. They won two military contracts shortly after.
@@josephastier7421wow.. Do you have the link to the video or article?
The fact it was able to correct for a lost engine and still keep the pointy end straight up and continue to (eventually) launch may be more impressive than if everything worked perfect. Rockets launch perfectly all the time. I've never seen one malfunction this bad and still continue on.
the hydralic failure on a falcon 9 that still managed to land upright and softly was rather impressive.
You have a great point! I also thought about the launch director and his team who could’ve panicked and self destructed it on or in the launch pad environment. They kept control of the situation even when it was out of control. I know good and well I would’ve been Mr Trigger Happy and pushed the big red button as soon as crap started to hit the fan. 🤣
Imagine being On Board.
"Max Pucker Factor"
@@user-mp3eq6ir5b *squeaky voice* We have reached Max P. Next objective is Max Q.
4 engine launch is probably going to become an engineering target now
The fact it could right itself and lift off is a marvel of engineering.
Things that would botch a launch 40 years ago will be minor inconveniences 40 years in the future. Technology is amazing
Agree if it was any old generation rocket the failure would of been an instant fireball on the pad. Instead they were able to save all the launch equipment and still get some useful data out of it without risking anyone's safety.
It's really a remarkable successful flight! Knowing that you still flew with a serious failure has to be good news. Wonder if they had a realistic weight dummy payload?
@@peterharrington8709 They did, yes
It's like building the rocket with low Delta v and trying to launch it off the launch pad in Kerbal ..
"The rocket hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
could have been by Douglas Adams
thats the feeling i got from starhopper
Astra now plans to beat SpaceX in perfecting the Infinite Improbability Drive.
I hope Astra's next one goes straight up according to plan and it's Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters all 'round. :)
@@sixstringedthing I've got my towel... Please mix me a Gargle Blaster while I finish my Jinnantonnix!!!!!
This launch is exactly why you never travel in space without your towel.
Somewhere, there's a programmer who feels incredibly vindicated for spending so much time on ludicrous edge cases in the flight control software.
Sprinkle in there a little bit of luck too. Lucky that the remaining 4 engines had enough power to keep it aloft till it got lighter by burning up some fuel and finally gained enough altitude. hehe
@@BillAnt and that the failed engine was on the side furthest from the tower else it would’ve slid the opposite direction straight into it.
@@M0ng0l0id - Good observation. On the other hand, if the middle one failed instead, it would have probably hovered on the lunch pad for a while (or worse). lol
@@BillAnt there is no "middle" engine - they're arranged in a pentagonal pattern
@@mollybeam_ - Hmm not sure why I remember seeing a middle engine, it must have been another rocket.
It's interesting to note, that a single engine failure has brought the thrust to weight ratio to just 1 (from a 1.2). It's a miracle that it was even able to hover till it lost enough fuel weight.
My favorite call was actually, "Approaching nominal (downrange) trajectory."
Meaning the guidance system was able to get the rocket back to not only vertical, but also close to nominal even after that severe of a deviation. That's actually very impressive.
It feels good, too, when you achieve that in KSP. More than enough times I get a spin going but manage to correct it in time to still make orbit.
@@samsonguy10k They have to keep to exclusion zones/specific orbit and they have way smaller margin on fuel though.
@@samsonguy10k My main problem in KSP is my rockets are so damn huge (because of RSS) that they're hard to maneuver and sometimes my gravity turn won't be aggressive enough, or sometimes too aggressive. It's hard maneuvering a rocket 2x the size of the Delta IV heavy and weighing about the same as a navy cruiser.
Ah, but were they using "nominal" in the ordinary English sense of "in name only" or the engineering sense of "as specified"? 😉
@@beeble2003 or the physics sense of a direction of force
Astra’s rocket just did the moon walk nothing out of the ordinary
I wonder if they'll do it intentionally next time :)
It was like my rockets in realism overhaul, lmao
"We're going for the MOON...walk"
You've been hit by, you've been struck by
A smooth engine failure
Ye that's the new strat to land on the moon, the moonwalk
On the bright side, the "flamey end down pointy end up" software seems to be working famously.
😂
Not just flawlessly, it's relentless af. Just as Protons system - to the point of being suicidal - "they tell me pointy end to the center of the earth, so be it!"
Except for that one engine which performed flamelessly.
@@brymstoner With the popularity of this footage I'd say that one engine performed flamelessly AND famously.
I'll see myself out.
"Getting to orbit isn't about reaching a certain altitude - it's about going sideways really fast"
Astra: "Noted"
I just couldn't contain from laughing out loud when I first saw this video. But to their credit they saved the day/rocket. hehe
Up first, then sideways. Try that next time.
Astra; Hold my beer
800 000 km/h too slow for that altitude..
Going sideways really fast then crashing into the ocean... every time....
Literally THE most Kerbal thing I've ever seen a real world rocket do.
Highly amusing and reminds me of my own kerbal experiences.
And how it's aerodynamically unstable and needs the main engines to remain upright during atmospheric ascent
I've for sure done this exact same thing in Kerbal.
Not too many real rockets do what mine usually do, which is flip upside down just before the gravity turn starts...
@@vi4135 same.
"SpaceX. SpaceY." I nearly died lol
Also, it just seems that Astra is playing KSP, no big deal. Engine breaks? Loss of thrust? Let's see how far it goes!
I've performed that maneuver plenty of times.
SpaceY's engineers we probably hitting a bong ... it went a bit sideways, but eventually got 'em "high" enough. ;D
5:54 for those who want to find it
@@robo_swimmer thanks!
Perhaps SpaceX should become SpaceZ
the space x and space y joke is probably the most underrated joke on this channel!
SpaceY is the SpaceX analog in Surviving Mars XD
It got an audible laugh out of me. It was so subtle and not even mentioned in the narration.
All future failed launches will need to be plotted on this X/Y graph shown here.
What's the joke?
He had posted the joke to Twitter earlier, that’s probably why it was shown but not mentioned. Also this particular video was about the details of the launch rather than the jokes.
Honestly props to Astra for how they handled this. The transparency was great and they deserved a great flight, but hell if this wasn’t a good demonstration of their control systems and guidance!
Honestly, I see this as a fantastic success in terms of testing their rockets, they learned that their fault tolerance is definitely up to snuff, and that their control software can handle some truly ridiculous stuff!
This aged very well
Yeah, the fact that if this were a real mission with a manned capsule as payload that everyone would have walked away disappointed, but perfectly fine does them great credit.
"Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing" as the saying goes.
Broadly speaking, it wasn't even a failure as the mission was to sacrifice an expendable test rocket in exchange for troubleshooting and performance data.
That's still 100% a successful mission even if the data you got back wasn't the data you were expecting.
5:55 Thnx for that SpaceY joke, I'm now cleaning the coffee from my screen.
same here!
🤣
That one caused a good 2-minute long chuckle.
You’re lucky - I was drinking a carbonated beverage and now my sinuses are on fire.
That was savage :D
Mad respect to Astra for this amazing flight.
Nah
overall this may be a win for the company :)
they melted baby animals.
First rocket ever launched that way.
I’m impressed that it didn’t fall on its side and detonate on the launchpad.
That is the most graceful "failure" that I've ever seen...respect to the Astra team!
how you handle failure and problems says more about your team than how it handles a "sucess". My estimation of the Astra team..." Hmm can I afford to buy stock, let me raid the piggy bank"
Task Failed Successfully
That wasn't really a 'failure', that was 'a cracked motor-bell, and then an EXTENSIVE test of the emergency-guidance system programming under extremely-adverse conditions'. And then it simply...completed its scheduled launch. Wow. That is good design, and (exceptionally) sensible coding of their software/systems.
...oh, good thought. Lemme look up what their stock is doing right now 'cause...THAT was amazing.
They recover their craft, avoid a pad destruction and pull it off with snappy decisions. They have a winning attitude.
There was an Atlas launch from around 1960 which more or less went the same way and got up to a decent altitude before it tumbled and blew up. A video of that failure is around somewhere on RUclips. I saw Astra doing that and the Atlas failure was the first thing I thought of.
Mad respect to ASTRA for designing a rocket that could actually have an engine explode on the pad and still reach 27 km altitude. That is some robust fault tolerance right there.
47 Km you mean. Taking KSP to a whole new level
Balloon rockets can do that.
That is almost as high as the Virgin Galactic flight isn't it?
@@Fr3dJ0rd That would be even more impressive.
@@scottmerrow1488 Not with that mass they don't.
Absolute props to Astra for being able to keep their launch site intact and gathering as much valuable data as possible, best case scenario in a failure mode IMO
It'll be a good time to invest in Astra cause when they get their first successful launch, their stockprice could take off, um... like a rocket.
@@aaronmicalowe you mean it'll go sideways?
Yeah, props to astra for avoiding cleaning up by polluting the sea instead…
@@AveragePicker All rocket companies do this.
@@AveragePicker as opposed to a successful launch that expends all fuel them falls into the ocean like is historically done? So you think each booster has a dedicated tank and one didn't empty ?
the most kerbal launch in a while, the dressing gown of doom strikes once again
And no Kraken nearby. ;)
Many KSP players can relate to accidentally messing up the staging and losing an engine or two at launch, but still rebounding and making it most of the way up...
That’s the one hilarious SManley trope missing from this EXTRAORDINARY amusing video! 👍
@@KertaDrake Yeah this is extremely impressive to me lol. One of my rockets recently had messy fuel lines so two of the side tanks were only feeding to the engines below them and not the central engine.. I saw the disparity in fuel consumption rates in my staging window and knew it was a fatal error :( Astra's rocket would have been able to handle it if only the TWR was high enough.
@@seedmole I just had a rescue mission launch where I was set to decouple my 4 sustainers partway through my rendezvous vector (approx. 200km -> 2Mm, decoupling at ~ 500km). I only realized the complication that added as the stage was coming close, but decided to run with it.
I decoupled, continued to burn at full with my final engine, and immediately wondered why my navball started spinning around. In the darkness of space, I finally realized that one of the engines hadn't detached properly, and was still hanging on by the radial decoupler, spinning around in circles. It took me a while to get it shaken off, and all that confusion cost me a lot of fuel.
In the end, I still had enough juice to reach poor Mitlock Kerman in his lonely passenger cabin, and was able to invite him in for tea and sandwiches. But reaching him took all the fuel I had. I had enough monoprop to get my periapsis down to 100km, but that was it. So close to home, and still so far.
So now I'm trying to earn all the science I can to unlock the Klaw, to send another rescue mission up there to either push them down or fill their monoprop tanks so they can do it themselves :D Ain't KSP an adventure?
Controlled asymmetric thrust is difficult, so the fact that they were able to control this event in such an impressive manner is a testament to their engineering and guidance system teams
This! Usually, a motor loss at launch means the rocket to crash almost immediately, so yeah, great navigation system
They were lucky the rocket didn't pitch over the launch tower though.
I have mad respect for Astra now. They are on my radar. This is what I would call a successful failure.
“On my radar” for what?? You’re gonna buy them?
@@bennybooboobear3940 No. I just respect there efforts.
This might unironically reduce their insurance payments.
@@MickGallJr Literally no chance that a failure reduces insurance premiums, regardless of how cool it looks to rocket enthusiasts.
Tast failed successfully
Piss-taking aside (and there's been plenty), fair play to Astra. Yes it was a failure, but it was a well-managed failure that ended up getting useful data and a non-catastrophic ending. Demonstrating and practicing good failure-response will be useful experience for the team and put them in better standing with the regulator in the future. If everyone nods sagely when Elon Musk says SpaceX learns as much from failures as successes, then we should extend the same response to Astra.
True . Elon himself says , if you aren't failing then you aren't innovating enough
Oh totally! This is a stunning example of learning from failures, and moving away from catastrophes. As plenty of comments said, this would have been a serious dilemma in the old days of rocketry, with the rocket either self destructing when the thrust was all wrong, or it careening off the pad and into the ground at takeoff speeds.
The fact it righted itself and adjusted for a failure to ignite/instant flame out is extremely impressive, and shows that astra is learning from mistakes in the past, and will likely continue to learn from experiences like this.
Fantastic propaganda piece on Elon "the cleverest person in the room, regardless of which room he's in" Musk in today's Observer (200+ yo British newspaper). Apparently Musk is "terrible at public relations". The irony!
A successful failure....
I'm sure that inside SpaceX they say: "Hey! Good control system!"
Not gonna lie, that was one of the coolest rocket launches ever.
Edit: wow thank you guys so much for the likes. 😳
Yes.
True
Yep
Most kerbal launch I have ever seen in my life.
Also the most Russian attitude to an American launch.. "Meh just let it do its thing its still pointing up ain't it"
In the distance footage, the cameraman's confused pan up and back down when they can't find the rocket is a mood.
Maybe he expected that it went up with light speed?
he was expecting traditional launch.
this was 20 century launch
@@vishnus7131 He was looking up as though he missed it :D
This "failure" just put Astra into every rocket conversation I"m ever going to have.
I believe there is a proverb: In the world of advertising there is no such thing as bad press. (Unless you are a game developer...)
I hadn't heard of Astra before yesterday, I'm now rooting for them.
Same
Me too *cjeam* I want the best for them.
Same here!!
Me, too.
1. One of the most interesting launches in history.
2. Incredible guidance system in the face of a major malfunction.
3. No collateral damage.
4. They're going to learn a ton from this.
I'd call that a success.
Gotta say it's impressive it didn't just completely blow up and kept going
Spacex: "We land rockets falling sideways"
Astra: "Hold my booster..."
They fly rockets sideways
50¢ for flying lessons, 50$ for landing lessons
You mean SpaceX that lands the boosters vertical on the launch pads?
One day when Astra finally accomplishes their objective and flies their rocket to operational status, I hope they keep these videos as part of their montage, much like what SpaceX did with their failures.
I was gonna say the same thing!
It would be rather difficult not to keep this video. The internet never forgets.
“Astra, the company that launches rockets sideways.”
Perfectly said. I hope they embrace it.
This could well be one of those rare vocabulary-changing days.
I'd say that the launch we witnessed was the first time one could use the phrase "epic fail" in a positive way. Things went wrong in the first second, and the original objective was immediately doomed, but they kept going as well as they could and ended up collecting a lot of experience which a perfect launch couldn't have given them. It was indeed epic. "The little rocket that almost could."
Mad respect for Scott Manley, too. He joked about the launch, but never in an insulting way.
"Things went sideways."
"Good thing the gate was still open."
"Rockets use most of their fuel to accumulate horizontal v, Astro just started a little early."
"Fiery end down, pointy end up" (sounds like a quote from "Upgoer 5" for bonus points)
[ "Homer disappearing into the hedge" meme ]
I mean, that’s the actual important bit, but we never think of it like that because we as ground observers only see the up part.
So an artillery battery?
@@ridhosamudro2199 ground support in slow motion. 😂
maybe just maybe the mission computer found sleepy joe's photo in their rom memory.
Rockets are hard, no shame to Astra for an early test flight failing. But the fact that it kept control and managed to get that amount of flight time rather than a RUD on the pad was very impressive. Kudos to the team 👍
You realllly don’t want this from a range safety pov
I wonder if “gate open” is going to be added to the pre flight check list.
Astra's new slogan "Sideways is the new Up!"
Their next launch will be from an enclosed hangar, the rocket will exit sideways through the door, then up-up and away. lol
@@BillAnt haha, yup and the opening theme from Thunderbirds will playing in the background.
@@BillAnt Either that or they will lay it down, hoping it will go vertical that way :-D
@@BillAnt Why stop there? Dig a tunnel through the Earth and launch the rocket through it.
@@tonysansom Maybe if they just adjust the artificial horizon 90 degrees upwards the rocket will go up in the belief that it's going sideways.
Scott, your commentary, and the SpaceX/space Y(axis) meme were hilarious!
Great video - was hoping for a “I’m Scott Manley, fly straight” at the end though !
Well, in a way it DID go _straight._
_Straight SIDEWAYS._
😊😊😊
could've been taken out of context lol.
fly safe*
Would be rude🙂
haha
I honestly think that Astra shouldn't be too upset about this. A rocket in development is going to have failures, but this is a spectacular demonstration of the guidance system's capabilities.
Agreed, I hope it doesn't hurt them financially, it's pretty impressive that their rocket could keep itself upright and moving upwards, even with an engine disabled.
Better guidance than my KSP rockets. After almost getting to orbit "mmm yes, to the core of Kerbin we go."
The problem is of course that you are losing
- money
- time
- trust of potential customers
I'd think that this early in development, they'd _want_ failures. You can learn more from failure than success, especially when you have a lot to learn. And better that the failures happen now than when they've been trusted with payloads.
Yes, "negative velocity" is definitely NOT something you want to see when looking at your guidance screen.. On the plus side, they did get their field plowed.
World's most expensive weed flamer.
Imagine having an engine explode on the pad and still getting closer to orbit than Blue origin
That burn might be an SSTO.
@Pronto They will be forever known the the PP Rocket! Adult Toy Rocket....Trying to be clean here! lol
It didn't explode but, yeah.
🤣🤣🤣 I actually LOL'd.
Lol this comment was perfection!!! Suck it Jeff!!
Harrier: Plane - takes off vertically.
Astra: Rocket - takes off sideways.
These are confusing times...
haha
Wow, look at you. Saying the obvious shit.
@Tano And Kangaroo's can't walk at all. They can only hop/jump or crawl forward. They can only change direction when they're in the air with their powerful muscles in their tails.
And this rocket lost an Engine looking like a small tail, on the camra aimed at Earth.
Strange world indeed. :p
@@billrich9722 wow look at you saying some obvious shit.
I am impressed they contained that engine's explosion without it taking out the other 4, that's a good sign for safety. The N1 launches failed due to cascading engine failure.
@AntiangelRaphael Very finely calibrated control system there. It kept the rocket stable despite it missing one engine in a corner and having stuff dangling off the side. That's a LOT of asymmetric drag at speed.
That was actually a software problem. The N1 rocket could have kept going if the control software hadn't *commanded* a shutdown of the other engines.
Apparently, the motor did not explode but had shut itself down possibly due to an explosion in the piping / raceway nearby.
But this is still all conjecture.
"I guess it's a good thing they kept the gate open, right?!"
This buckled me so hard :D
the launch was incredibly hilarous to watch.. 100points for effort for sure. i mean this must be the launch with the highest amount of gravity losses in the history of rocketry that still went up🤣
negative velocity with a moonwalk move and don't crash 😲👍
@@dolwolfianphotography i think their telemetry was broken
No, the telemetry itself looked robust enough. It was simply computing the distance between the intended (upwards) trajectory vector and the (lateral) movement vector. And, at the beginning, that meant negative speed values.
“Flamey end down, pointy end up” - that’s rocket science!
I like to see Scott quoting Tim Todd.
I'm sure it says that in the control algorithm :-)
That was the only launch goal attained by Astra. The Astra Engineering Director was overheard after launch " C'mon guys, whats the problem this isnt rocket science!" Engineering person "Uhh boss, I think you may be wrong on that one "
If the end with the fire is pointing toward space, you are having a bad problem and will not go to space today.
Douchey
_"The computer onboard does the whole flamey end thing down and pointy end up."_
Is this rocket science jargon?
FEDPEU? Ya, that's about right!
this whole pointy/flamey end came from Everyday Astronaut and its childish as hell. No likey.
@@z33r0now3 Tim is a legend and can use whatever stupid catch phrase he wants.
@@z33r0now3 no one cares what u like
Enough of your technobabble.
next Astra launch: rocket noclips into the ground, turns into a slinky, freezes for a minute, then explodes, sending pieces flying at light speed in all directions.
Revert to Launch (1s ago)
Revert to Vehicle Assembly (2s ago)
Cancel
Their next launch could be from an enclosed hangar, takes up sideways through the doors then up it goes. Never mind burning up a bunch precious fuel in the process. lol
Kraken has joined the chat
Sounds like what Danny does on a daily basis
So, it had a critical failure at one of the most critical phases, lift off.
And yet, it was able to "recover" from a complete standstill with an engine failure, and flight away.
That to me is a big success test launch, awesome controls!
Now we know where all of the real software engineers are working, SpaceX and Astra.
@@thomasboese3793 Meanwhile, at Boeing, they can’t get a sensor reading right, a timer to keep correct track of time or a valve sequencing system to work….
When a launch attempt literally goes sideways:
So many emotions..
Not gonna lie, humour was at the top of the list though.. 🤣
I'm waiting for a launch attempt to literally go pear-shaped.
Literally goes laterally.
This is the most Kerbal launch ever!
That title belongs to the proton m launch failure
@@trapsarentgay4195 Was that the one where they put the thing in upside down?
@@DrToonhattan I would think so.
@@DrToonhattan They have placed MechJeb upside down, it happens.
Honestly, this is far from a failure. Losing an engine can happen to every rocket, even the ones with the most successful flight history, but they managed to move it away from the pad and aborted the mission safely. To me thats a win, especially in a prototyping stage, and I hope the shareholders see it like that too.
You've gotta admire their control systems that can keep the rocket upright with an engine failure right at liftoff. As was said about Apollo 13, it's a successful failure. I suspect Astra will learn a lot from this flight.
No failure. As the Indians will say, "Just a technical anomaly". They learned a lot from their white sahibs.
The data alone has gotta be amazing! I don't know if they could have done anything better with what they had.
SpaceX has shown that it is ok to fail as long as we learn something. Astra has earned respect for being open and sharing live, as well as demonstrating great capabilities of hardware and software with that rocket managing to go up so far under challenging circumstances.
... as long as your learn something and didn't run out of money. Which is a risk for Astra.
SpaceX was far from the first to show that. That's been true for the entire history of science.
"SpaceX has shown that it is ok to fail as long as we learn something" - as long as someone else is paying for it.
Absolutely! Rocket science ain't easy, best way to learn is from mistakes (a lucky one at that). ;)
You know what they say: *"when things go sideways, make your next objective Max Q"* 😂🏆🎊
And now I love Astra
I mean even if it only went up a foot technically you could still have a Max Q...
Just imagine some advanced aliens watching this launch remotely cracking up laughing. "Yo, that thing went sideways!! Bah-ha-ha!"
No. When the launch starts going sideways it is the duty of the range safety officer to terminate the flight. No exceptions, even if it means he gets fired. So you have to clean up the launch area? That's what it's there for, an empty area with no residents!! If something is going wrong, and it OBVIOUSLY IS, you do not know what else will go wrong. The range safety comm channel might go next, and then the nav system, and it lands in the middle of Los Angeles or whatever city and kills a thousand people. ABSOLUTELY IRRESPONSIBLE and they should be SHUT DOWN, the fools.
@@woodybrison - Right, but then we couldn't have enjoyed a great sideways laugh. :D
@@woodybrison Sigh. It was still heading in a direction that was on the same horizontal trajectory as if it had been functional, so it was safe to keep flying it. It would have been terminated the second the rocket turned back towards a city . These people know what they're doing.
I love how Scott is super smart to go into the nitty-gritty detail about rockets but still has the humor to put in a Simpsons meme XD
I know, that gave me a good laugh when I needed it the most. =]
did the space X vs space Y joke go over your head?
I watched this launch and immediately headed over to Scott Manley for the explanation. Sure enough, posted 15 minutes ago. You never fail us Scott!
It was an excellent broadcast and I think despite its failure ASTRA has gained a lot of fans. Twas a noble fight to get off the ground when down an engine. 😎👍 Quite a gimble success in this regard.
Mean it flew, it took off, its was as much in orbit as Blue Origin claim to be XD
@@MouseGoat They may have gained a lot of fans but they rely on share holders :( It is probably fortunate that this happened on a Saturday while the stock market is closed and panicky investors have time to cool off before throwing their towels in the ring.
@@iamjadedhobo I'd be more apt to invest now than before. A rocket engine can fail. A craft that can recover from it, and still fly part of the way is, so far, exceptional.
@@joesterling4299 Agree! At the very least, it shows two things: (1) the avionics software is well-written, and (2) the initial 'explosion' was somewhat contained so it doesn't damage the other engines and/or the superstructure.
Also, their decision to keep the rocket alight as long as possible even after reaching a safe zone to ditch, for the purposes of gathering as much data as possible, that's good engineering mindset.
Better luck next time, Astra, I'm now rooting for you!
For sure! Honestly, had never heard of them before yesterday. Now I'll be cheering them on for their next launch.
Crazy Respect to the software designers and the speed the gimbaling hardware reacted that kept it vertical when it went sideways. That’s some fierce processing that compensating to keep it pointing upwards and not just toppling with an engine out so soon after launch.
I'm impressed that the rockets stayed up and intact. That says a lot to me and I hope their next launch goes much better.
Wow, that's one tough rocket. Surviving a substantial explosive event within the enclosure and still making serious altitude. That things gonna be a beast for its size. Best wishes Astra team. Dr. Scott always has these great analytics. :)
"pointy end up, flamey end down gate open, right!" Brilliant Scott
"We now know that our thrust vectoring system has enough control range." Pretty cool, though.
Honestly, I like how it recovered itself so fast that it didn't do a lot more that burn the glass. Kudos to the programmer from another programmer
I would argue that it isn't that bad a result for them. It shows how good their guidance and gimballing is.
Just about any other rocket would have fallen over and taken out the pad.
Also known as a RUD.
In my mind at the end :
“I’m Scott Manley, fly sideways”
Gold
That would have been an epic ending!
I watched the stream of this, fave comment 'they failed to fly safe!'... but I must admit this was a successful failure.
@@scowell They may not have flown well, but in the end they did fly safe enough--managed not to crash the thing on the pad or into land, and managed to splash it down into one of the exclusion zones. It's impressive that they were able to avoid a worse problem.
Guessing their post-mortem will probably include: "On a positive note, our automated guidance system worked well here."
I'm impressed, that their flight systems adjusted to the incident so smoothly. Handling a sudden loss of power, and the rocket lurching to the side without ending up as a pile of flaming garbage on the launch pad is actually impressive.
The way she says "our next objective is max q" in this surprised, slightly amused voice is hilarious. :D
I was SO hoping you’d do a piece on this… perfectly explained as usual, thank you Scott!
I imagine the amount of good data about guidance will be a positive out of this. I also like the statement “you learn more from a failure than a success” also … you just have to make use of that! 🙂
Sure, that's why I feel their PR release on this kinda lame - if they should learn anything from Musk that should be sense of humor I guess.
@@retrotronx8985 really? Of all the things one can learn from Musk, humor is what you choose! 🤯
“it’s a good thing, that they kept their gate open” LOL
Loll
Unironically this would have gone seriously wrong without that open gate - which makes it funny, depressing, face-palming and makes one laugh and cry at the same time
Love it!
@@thulyblu5486 To commemorate this, all of their future pre-launch checklists should have a "Verify launch pad access gate open status" line that everyone would seriously check as a part of the countdown.
If I was an engineer working there, I would secretly put a remote controlled gate opener on it and at about t minus 30 , open the gate... :)
This meme would make Astral even more famous for regular people, indirectly helping the company
I feel for them. We've all had launches like this in KSP.
Was going to post exactly this. That feeling when you didn't put enough engines on your KSP rocket and it sits on the pad burning fuel until it gets light enough to start going up haha.
Needs more boosters.
That sinking feeling when you release the clamp-o-trons and the rocket starts losing altitute.
The „Space Y” and Homer disappearing jokes made my day.
An incredibly interesting video and good explanation. Hope Astra succeeds with the next launch.
SN15: I'm gonna do the most Kerbal thing for years to come.
LV0006: Hold my beer.
Starship 420: ????
sn10 was more kerbal than 15
Scott, great report . Good visuals and great highlighting of details. Thank you.
As an old inertial navigation engineer, the guidance set did an awesome job. Thanks for the nice video and comments.
Well, when it comes to Astra, Tim Dod is going to have to add another check to his list, not only will he be confirming that the flamey end is down and the pointy end is up, he also going to have to check to see if the gate is open ready for launch.
Omgosh I really hope in future launches that that gate stays open lol
They should sell a shirt with a picture of that gate and the caption "Astra - The Gateway to Space"
@@joshp3994 Perhaps with the rocket going through the gate, great symbolic image yet actual photo.
"Flamey thing pointed to the ground, pointy thing aimed at the sky" Scott Manly on modern rocketry mishaps, love it.
It's kind of an older saying on his channel.
This is from Everyday Astronaut, he uses this term all the time.
"the computer onboard does the whole flamey end thing down and pointy end up" ... love it!
Describing an advanced navigation system into a child's book. :)
You should look up Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe, it sounds like it would be right up your alley :)
This launch harkens back to the Falcon 1 launches where interesting mishaps like the rocket crashing back onto the shed where they prepped the rocket. An entertaining anomaly for sure.
Space X / SpaceY - LOL. That alone brightened my day.
The corniest joke in all of time and 2D Space.
@@confuded Yes, but just hit the right spot at the right time, distracting me from work which is always a good thing.
@@confuded what a joke 🤣
"... and that is how you launch a rocket!"
- Wernher von Kerman
Yeah the fucking Nazi!
@@james-faulkner
"von kerman" is a character from kerbal space program; you're thinking of von braun, the real life hero of nasa's space program with the, uh, questionable history.
@@sirmoonslosthismind Let's just say that the payloads (and destinations) of Von Braun's first rockets could be construed as slightly controversial...
@@andreipendle1778
nah, the worse part was the manufacturing process. many more people (concentration camp laborers) were killed by the v2 before it was launched than after.
Sometimes it takes a mishap to happen just to prove how reliable your safety systems are. It may not have been a successful launch but I'm sure they got some pretty amazing data from it nonetheless.
Considering how often early rockets tended to take off for 1 second, then fall over and explode, this is still a win. I'm super impressed that the flight computer kept it upright and actually got the rocket to fly even with a main engine failure like that.
the rocket had incredible control, having lost an engine and being unbalanced. I wish Astra best of luck next time.
Reminds me of when Kerbal's default thrust setting was 50% and you forgot to throttle up before launch...
PLEASE note the latching failure on the bottom right of the video .. the flash and the latch/catch is the piece that damaged the skirt that falls off at the onboard cam view towards the first stage engine . The latch failure is what tilted the craft initially before it is overcome by thrust .
Great save by the team, they got themselves a sneaky hovering demonstration out of it too!
They're still doing more to advance spaceflight than Jeff and his lawyers
@Email Subjekt da fuck do you mean murderer LMFAO 😂? Holy shit you Jeff stans are out of ideas
@Email Subjekt Hello Jeff!
@Email Subjekt hi Jeff
@Email Subjekt hey, when trolling you can't go too hard or people realize and just laugh at you. Less dumb next time and you'll have more success buddy
Yes! they're actually trying to reach orbit.
The poor guidance system fighting against it's inevitable doom reminds me of that one time a small cold gas thruster on a Falcon 9 valiantly tried to keep the rocket from tipping over after landing.
Great idea to allow NSF to do the livestream!
Poor guidance? it was an engine failure...not a guidance failure.
@@gothboschincarnate3931 yes, but the guidance system did it's best to keep the rocket upright and even taking it upward. Without it's heroic struggle, the rocket would turned and crashed into the pad almost immediately because of the asymmetrical thrust.
@@MoritzvonSchweinitz "poor" as in empathy. How did i misread that?
A perfect illustration of when your plan goes sideways!
I just lost it at the" Space X / Space Y " comparison 😆
Hope they can sort out the issues and are rewarded with a flawless launch at the next time 👍
Wait, normally isn't X horizonal and Y vertical? *confused*
@@voidstarq X and Y horizontal, Z vertical.
@@voidstarq Normally, yes, but you can easily change them around if you so desire.
As long as we never see SpaceZ (which I think would be like SpaceY but with the rocket coming straight towards the camera), we'll be fine.
@@voidstarq In reference frames that move along with a vehicle (for example describing the environment of a plane, rocket or car from the vehicle's point of view), x is usually pointing out the vehicle front.
@@voidstarq Yeah, of course you're correct on that - But even with the variables inverted (wich you can do, as others explained), the comparison was really funny in my opinion ;)
How often do you get to see an incredible achievement and a huge whoopsie in the same launch?
and this rocket had a catastrophic failure and decided to head to space anyways.
That was impressive as hell, I can't believe it handled that catastrophic event so well, respect guys, things go wrong but it's rare that they showcase rarely-seen capabilities like this!!! 👌 I love how much information you give us at a level I can understand btw - thanks!
Scott, any chance 1 engine out performance was designed to be 1:1 thrust/weight at max weight? I mean its got 5 engines, right? Probably not a controlling factor to the design, but handy in this case. Kudos to Astra, space is hard.
This takes the “Power Slide” of the Atlas V 411 to a whole other level !!
Fantastic observation. I'm glad somebody is paying attention.
The best atlas V
you only have to wait very small amounts of times for Mr. Manley to explain the day's rocket happenings. most reliable and concise rocket channel on youtube
Eh, good on them for sticking with it. They've still made it closer to orbit than BO.
Blue Origin’s current rocket (New Shepard) is not made for orbit. The huge orbital rocket is called New Glenn and I hope they can launch it «soon». Space X really needs some serious competition.
@ BO are neither competition nor serious.
@ I am openly hostile to BO after their efforts to sue NASA.
@ That "huge orbital rocket" hasn't passed the mock-up stage of development, yet. Additionaly they are probably years away from flight operational BE4 engines now with the majority of skilled engineers leaving that god forsaken company.
@ i think Rocket lab is a bigger competition to SpaceX than BO at the moment
Great! Finally some clarity. I was looking around for information on what exactly happened !