The contract, which the DIU awarded under its Novel Responsive Space Delivery (NRSD) program, has a maximum value of $44 million. The money (however much of it is actually sent) will go toward the continued development of Astra’s Launch System 2, designed to perform rapid, ultra-low-cost launches.
The new funding is a sign that not everyone has lost faith in Astra, a startup that went public in 2021 at a $2.1 billion valuation with lofty ambitions of mass producing small, cheap rockets capable of executing hundreds of missions per year. But the company burned through cash as it struggled to materialize those statements, notching several failed launches (and two successful ones) before announcing the pivot to the 600-kilogram payload capacity Rocket 4.