Astra

Astra set out to make orbital launch so cheap and frequent it would feel like freight. Rocket 3 was deliberately small and simple, built to fly often from anywhere, and it reached orbit twice in seven attempts. The products today are different: the Astra Spacecraft Engine, an electric propulsion unit sold to satellite operators, and Rocket 4, a larger vehicle that has not yet flown.

Chris Kemp and Adam London founded the company in 2016 on the view that reliability could be traded for volume, that a cheap rocket flying constantly would beat an expensive one flying rarely. The market disagreed sooner than the engineering did. After an upper stage failure lost two NASA hurricane-watching satellites in June 2022, Astra cancelled Rocket 3 and refocused on propulsion.

The corporate arc has been as steep as any flight. Astra listed through a SPAC in 2021 at a valuation near four billion dollars, and three years later its founders took it private at fifty cents a share, in a deal the company's own filing described as the alternative to bankruptcy. The quieter business is working: about 110 engine systems shipped in the twelve months to January 2026. Nothing has launched since 2022, and Rocket 4's first flight has been targeted for 2026 from Cape Canaveral.