4/11/2023 - Written By Caleb Henry
Astra has avoided delisting for now, but the company still has a long way to go to achieve a healthy stock price, among other things. Even for de-SPAC'd companies, Astra's stock appears notably sensitive to the whims of retail investors unfamiliar with the space industry. Even brief launch delays, which are customary to space missions, have sent the stock spiraling in the past. Astra's stock has been trading below $1.00 since August 2022, when the company discontinued its Rocket 3 product, effectively suspending all launch activity until the new, larger Rocket 4 is available. More important than the 12x increase in payload capacity, Rocket 4 is being designed for reliability, something Astra management had publicly shirked as less important than a high flight cadence until it started losing customers. Astra has lost five of seven rockets, with the last one destroying two NASA cubesats. Astra had four more cubesats from NASA that it intended to transition to Rocket 4, but NASA reassigned those spacecraft to competitor Rocket Lab in a decision announced April 10. Rocket 4 is the company's Hail Mary to return confidence to customers and shareholders.
SOURCE: https://investor.astra.com/sec-filings/sec-filing/8-k/0000950170-23-012377