Chris Kemp unpluggedAstras CEO dishes on the space companys struggles

Published

2 years ago

August 22, 2023

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Margins — Chris Kemp unpluggedAstras CEO dishes on the space companys struggles “Im a public company, I cant make this shit up.”

Stephen Clark – Aug 21, 2023 9:31 pm UTC Enlarge / Chris Kemp, founder and CEO of Astra.David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images reader comments 28 with

Chris Kemp is a fighter. That’s the price of admission if you want to compete in the brutal small launch industry. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Astra, founded in 2016 with a goal of essentially commoditizing small satellite launch services, or at least getting a lot closer to that than anyone else.

But there are a lot pressure points for Astra in 2023. The company abandoned its first orbital rocket design, called Rocket 3, last year after a string of failures. With higher interest rates, raising money in 2023 isn’t as easy as it was a few years ago. And calling Astra’s competition stiff is definitely an understatement.

Kemp argues that Astra finds itself in a different position than, say, Virgin Orbit, a small satellite launch company that went bankrupt earlier this year. Astra has diversified, and can lean on a separate source of revenue in a promising business building electric thrusters for small satellites. This business, which Astra calls spacecraft engines, was made possible by the acquisition of a company called Apollo Fusion in 2021.

SpaceX is achieving great success in aggregating large numbers of small satellites onto its Falcon 9 rocket, significantly bigger than vehicles like Rocket Lab’s Electron launcher or anything on Astra’s drawing board.

That has pushed Rocket Lab and Relativity Space to prioritize developing larger rocketsthe Neutron and Terran Rthat are partially reusable to better compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Astra, on the other hand, is still betting what an inexpensive, mass-produced, expendable small rocket can be successful in winning business to haul lightweight satellites into orbit, either one at a time, or in small groups. The argument there is that a small rocket can deliver payloads to optimal orbits, instead of releasing them at an undesirable altitude or inclination.

Whether or not that’s the right business strategy, the predicament that Astra currently finds itself in is that the first iteration of its small launch vehicle, Rocket 3, failed to become a reliable option for customers. In seven orbital launch attempts, Rocket 3 failed five times. To be fair, Kemp points out that some of these launches were test flights without functioning satellites on board. Astra moved on from Rocket 3 after a launch failure in June 2022 destroyed two NASA hurricane research satellites. Advertisement

Ars published a story last week about the headwinds facing Astra, which recently announced layoffs of about 25 percent of its workforce. It is now staffed at between 200 and 250 employeesquite a lean operation compared to peers in the small launch industry. Around 50 of those employees were shifted from working on Astra’s new rocket, called Rocket 4, to devote their time to satellite propulsion systems.

Astra has a big challenge ahead, but it’s obvious Kemp isn’t ready to throw in the towel. Hespoke with Ars on Friday from Astra’s rocket factory in Alameda, California. Here are some highlights. Is it fair to say Astra is in a fight for survival?

Chris Kemp: “It is a little unfair … We have a very profitable source of revenue, which is our spacecraft engine. Weve sold hundreds of them at great margins.

“This is our rocket facility. This is a quarter of a million square feet. You can see the rocket production line behind me. There are people down there making rocket stuff. Its real. Thats a Rocket 4 stage on the production line … I could characterize the launch business at Astra as fighting for its survival, but I wouldnt characterize Astra as fighting for its survival. Astra has always had the option of just stopping the launch business. The reason why we havent is we have already largely completed the development and the capex [capital expenditures] required to manufacture the vehicles two years ago, when we started the Rocket 4 program, hundreds of millions of dollars ago, before we had engines and stages and a giant $100 million production line. Weve now done so much work toward this program that the next step is just testing things and going out and doing some test flights. Then the Space Force has some flights. We have some NASA flights. We have a backlog of launch contracts. In the case of the Space Force contract, thats an $11.5 million contract, millions of dollars of cash comes in, in advance of launch, because of the milestones were achieving.

“So I look at it and I say, well, if I were not to do launch, we simply wouldnt be able to bill the Space Force for these milestones. So what it does it cost me to continue running launch versus what would it cost me to shut down launch? Its kind of a wash, honestly, if we continue to get contracts and government support for launch, and the government has said that they really want to support it. I mean, there are three (private or venture-backed) companies right now operating that have put satellites in orbitSpaceX, Rocket Lab, and Astrafull stop. Fireflys stuff deorbited in a few days. ABL blew up everything, Relativity failed and scrubbed the program and wont fly again until 2027 [Relativity says Terran R’s first flight is scheduled for 2026]. Advertisement Enlarge / Astra revealed a prototype of its Rocket 4 launch vehicle in May.Astra

“The way I look at it is there are three launch companies that can point to the sky and say weve put satellites in orbit, and were one of them. And were the only one of them that has already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a production line. Were the only one of them that has a mobile system that we have already demonstrated. We can go to Cape Canaveral and set up in under a week. We have some Space Force people here right now walking the production line … We have folks that view what Astra has built and demonstrated, and they say, ‘This has value to us, you guys have a mission control with two people in it, you guys have a system that last year deployed at Cape Canaveral in six days.’

“Its only going to get better from here with a 600-kilogram class vehicle (Rocket 4’s planned payload capacity to low-Earth orbit), and I think that puts Astra in a position where just killing launch, given we have customers and cash and revenue coming into that business, isnt an obvious choice for us. Its a risky choice for us.

“But weve got this public company now with stock trading at 25 cents per share. That makes it nearly impossible for us to raise any meaningful amount of capital in public markets. So that basically means that we need to take the revenue coming in, the cash coming in from our spacecraft engines business, and whatever cash comes in from our launch business, and kind of make it work.” Page: 1 2 3 Next → reader comments 28 with Stephen Clark Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the worlds space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet. Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Next story → Related Stories Today on Ars

US

US has seized oil tanker off coast of Venezuela, Donald Trump says

Published

2 hours ago

December 11, 2025

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US has seized oil tanker off coast of Venezuela, Donald Trump says

The US has intercepted and seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, Donald Trump has said.

President Trump confirmed the operation at a meeting with business leaders at the White House on Wednesday.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” he said at the start of the meeting.

It marks the latest escalation from the Trump administration, which has in recent months ramped up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The US accuses Mr Maduro of presiding over a narcotrafficking operation in Venezuela, which he denies

Tanker ‘used to transport sanctioned’ oil, US claims

Later, Attorney General Pam Bondi shared a video of the operation, confirming that the FBI, Homeland Security, US Coast Guard, and Department of Defence were involved.

She said on X that the US forces “executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran”.

“For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organisations,” she added.

“This seizure, completed off the coast of Venezuela, was conducted safely and securely-and our investigation alongside the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the transport of sanctioned oil continues.”

She did not name the vessel, what flag the vessel sailed under, or exactly where the incident took place.

UK maritime risk management group Vanguard said that the tanker Skipper – which the US sanctioned for alleged involvement in Iranian oil trading under the name Adisa – was believed to have been seized.

US interception of oil tanker raises more questions about international law

The seizing of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela is a significant escalation in US tactics.

By targeting an oil shipment, rather than a suspected drug boat, Washington has signalled its willingness to disrupt exports.

President Trump seems determined to shut down one of the last major sources of funding for Nicholas Maduro’s embattled government.

Nine months ago, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on all goods imported into the US from any country buying oil or gas from Venezuela.

This is even more aggressive and will be viewed in Caracas as a direct threat to the country’s economy and sovereignty.

The interception of the tanker raises more questions about international maritime law and the reach of US enforcement powers.

In the space of four months, the US has bombed 23 boats, killing 87 people, accusing the occupants of being “narco-terrorists”.

It will also fuel speculation that airstrikes are imminent, President Trump having posted two weeks ago that he had closed the airspace.

Trump on seized oil: ‘We keep it’

Without giving additional information on the operation, Mr Trump added during the White House meeting with business leaders that “other things are happening”.

Later, Mr Trump said that the tanker was “seized for a very good reason,” and when asked what will happen to the oil on board the vessel, he added: “Well, we keep it, I suppose”.

He also suggested that Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who angered the Trump administration by speaking at a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the UN in September, could “be next” if his country doesn’t “wise up” on alleged drug trafficking.

The US has escalated military deployments against the Latin American country over the last few months, with Mr Trump suggesting that American forces could launch a land attack on Venezuela.

On 2 September, the White House posted on X that it had conducted a strike against so-called “narcoterrorists” shipping fentanyl to the US, without providing direct evidence of the alleged crime.

Sky’s Data & Forensics unit has verified that in the past four months since strikes began, 23 boats have been targeted in 22 strikes, killing 87 people.

Geoffrey Corn, director of the Centre for Military Law at Texas Tech University, told Sky News’s Mark Austin on The World that Mr Trump’s remarks on land strikes “ostensibly” refer to drug cartel members.

Formerly a senior adviser to the US army on warfare law, Mr Corn added: “That could very easily provide the pretext for some confrontation between Venezuelan armed forces and US armed forces.

“And then that would open the door to a broader campaign to basically negate the power of the Venezuelan military.”

Venezuela ‘prepared to break the teeth’ of US

Speaking to Politico on Tuesday, Mr Trump declined to comment on whether US troops would enter Venezuela, but said that Mr Maduro’s “days are numbered”.

According to Bloomberg, the Maduro government describes US actions as a grab for Venezuela’s oil reserves – among the biggest in the world.

Meanwhile, at a rally before a ruling-party-organised demonstration in Caracas, Mr Maduro did not address the seizure, but told supporters that Venezuela is “prepared to break the teeth of the North American empire if necessary”.

Flanked by senior officials, he said that only the ruling party can “guarantee peace, stability, and the harmonious development of Venezuela, South America and the Caribbean”.

Environment

bp pulse cranks up DC fast charging with Arizona debut

Published

3 hours ago

December 10, 2025

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bp pulse cranks up DC fast charging with Arizona debut

bp pulse fast charging Arizona — Photo: bp pulse

bp pulse is continuing to roll out public DC fast charging across the US, and the company has opened its first-ever site in Arizona, along with new fast-charging locations in Texas, Florida, and Ohio.

In Arizona, bp pulse’s first site is now online at the Petro Travel Center in Eloy, just off Interstate 10 at Exit 200 (pictured). The location features 16 charging bays delivering up to 400 kilowatts, with both CCS and NACS connectors available. While charging, drivers can take advantage of the travel center’s onsite diner, convenience store, ATM, barber shop, and restrooms.

In South Florida, bp pulse’s new fast-charging site is at 2400 Miami Road in Fort Lauderdale, about three miles from Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport. The site features 16 charging bays, offering a mix of 150 kW and 400 kW speeds, with both CCS and NACS connectors. Its proximity to the airport makes it a handy stop for ride-hail drivers, EV rental returns, and airport pickups and drop-offs, with hotels, restaurants, and convenience stores nearby.

Texas is also getting more high-power charging, with a new bp pulse site at the Petro Travel Center in El Paso, located off Interstate 10 at Exit 37. This location offers 12 charging bays capable of delivering up to 400 kW, again with both CCS and NACS connectors. Drivers can take advantage of the diner, convenience store, barber shop, and restrooms while they charge.

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In Ohio, bp pulse has opened a smaller but still high-powered site at a TravelCenters of America location in Hebron, just off Interstate 70 at Exit 126. The site includes six 400 kW charging bays with CCS and NACS connectors, along with access to a convenience store, fast-food options, and restrooms.

These openings are part of bp pulse’s broader plan to build out EV charging across bp’s retail footprint, including bp, Amoco, ampm, Thorntons, and TravelCenters of America locations. Many of those sites are designed to combine fast charging with food, restrooms, and other travel amenities. bp has also said it plans to begin adding EV chargers at Waffle House locations starting in 2026.

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Sports

U-M fires Moore for inappropriate relationship

Published

3 hours ago

December 10, 2025

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U-M fires Moore for inappropriate relationship

Dec 10, 2025, 04:44 PM ET

Michigan fired coach Sherrone Moore for cause Wednesday after a university investigation that found “credible evidence” he was engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.

“This conduct constitutes a clear violation of University policy, and U-M maintains zero tolerance for such behavior,” athletic director Warde Manuel said in a statement Wednesday.

Biff Poggi was named interim coach. Michigan is slated to play Texas in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl on Dec. 31.

The news ends Moore’s Michigan coaching career at 17-8, with his final game a 27-9 loss to Ohio State to conclude a 9-3 season. The 39-year-old had gone through two years of his five-year contract as the Wolverines’ head coach, and the school’s firing for cause means it isn’t planning to pay the nearly $12.3 million it would have owed him on his deal.

Moore was promoted to Michigan’s head coach in the wake of Jim Harbaugh’s departure for the NFL after Michigan’s 2023 national title.

Moore endured some off-field controversies before his firing, including a suspension in Week 3 and Week 4 of this season tied to the Connor Stalions illegal advanced scouting scheme.

Moore was set to serve an additional one-game suspension for the start of the 2026 season as well. He was also suspended for the season opener in 2023 as part of self-imposed penalties for breaking recruiting rules.

Moore was a successful offensive line coach and offensive coordinator before being promoted to head coach. He was a finalist for the Broyles Award in 2023, when he was the playcaller on Michigan’s national title team.

The firing puts Michigan in a difficult position of finding a coach in the wake of what’s been considered the most volatile coaching carousel in recent college football history. There’s already been a flurry of hires and extensions, which will complicate Michigan’s search.