Road to Rocket 4.0: Astra's CEO Chris Kemp

Astra's first launch of NASA’s TROPICS satellites ended in failure this summer. Shortly thereafter, Astra scrapped all flights for 2022 and accelerated its pivot to a larger, more capable launcher. As it moves customer payloads to the Rocket 4.0 manifest, Astra says it will launch scientific spacecraft for NASA that are comparable to TROPICS payloads.

All the while, shares of Astra have been in free-fall: $ASTR is -90% YTD. Chris still sounded a confident tone, saying the company has the cash to get to Rocket 4.0. Plus, “we have a tremendous number of assets sitting behind me that we've been using our balance sheet to fund,” Chris told us.

*CHAPTERS* 

0:00 - Intro 
5:40 - Astra's garage origins and what's changed in the last five years 
9:43 - Falcon 9 → Falcon 9 .... and how Astra is responding to market demand in launch 
12:40 - What’s the delta in "the three Cs" as Astra moves from 3.0 to 4.0? 
16:39 - Chris dives into what’s needed for launching 4.0 
19:10 - How has Astra’s willingness to fail early and iterate helped them get to where they are today? 
26:10 - An evolving approach to manufacturing, production, and launch operations 
28:18 - The customer profile and civil, commercial, and military space split for Rocket 4.0 
31:47 - Take the Payload/SpiderOak space cyber survey 
33:38 - IR with institutions and retail investors 
37:46 - Ryan shares a Payload reader’s question (and concerns) about Astra's future 
40:27 - Could a sale be in the cards? 
44:32 - Where will Astra be 12 months from now? 
49:43 - Hottest take, or most contrarian view, on space

*SHOW NOTES* 

Astra’s website: https://astra.com/ 

Chris’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kemp 

Astra’s investor updates: https://investor.astra.com/static-files/6492bebb-0313-4b4b-a52a-da29428239d9 | https://investor.astra.com/news-releases/news-release-details/astra-announces-spacecraft-engine-contract-airbus-oneweb 

Astra’s Keynote Day: https://astra.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Astra-Spacetech-Day-Keynote-2022.pdf 

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