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 *ABOUT US* Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand, and while we have designs on becoming the biggest space content company in the galaxy, for now, we publish:1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, every Monday to Friday morning2) Pathfinder, this podcast, on Tuesday mornings3) ...and 💫Parallax!💫 on Thursday afternoons. Parallax is our new weekly science newsletter for the space industry. Subscribe now so you can say you were early by signing up at parallax.beehiiv.comSubscribe to our daily newsletter and find out more at www.payloadspace.com