Astra Space’s rocket isn’t the only thing that’s falling from the sky.
Shares of the much-hyped US space company fell nearly a quarter on Monday after one of Astra’s rockets dramatically malfunctioned over the weekend while on a test mission for the US Space Force.
Astra Space stock opened down 24 percent at $8.87 on Monday before recovering somewhat to $9.41 at mid-morning.
That marks a serious fall from grace for the California-based rocket maker, which saw its shares trade above $15 in July shortly after it went public through a SPAC deal at valuation of $2.1 billion.
On Saturday, an Astra Space rocket malfunctioned during a test flight in Kodiak, Alaska when one of the rocket’s five main engines shut down in a plume of smoke shortly after leaving the ground.
The loss of one engine caused the rocket to teeter sideways before fully taking off, throwing it off course as it accelerated toward space for two and a half minutes.
Astra engineers then shut down all the rockets’ engines before it reached orbit, causing the craft to plummet back to the ground.
The company — which had also raised $100 million from backers including BlackRock, Airbus, ex-Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff before going public — has never successfully put a rocket into orbit.
Saturday’s failed Astra launch was the company’s first commercial mission. The rocket carried a test payload as part of a program by the US Space Force.
“We regret that we were unable to accomplish all mission objectives for the US Space Force,” said Chris Kemp, the company’s founder and CEO, in a statement on Saturday. “However, we captured a tremendous amount of data from this test flight.”
Astra added it had opened a “mishap investigation” and was working with the Federal Aviation Administration to investigate the failure.
Astra spokesperson Kati Daum did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Monday.