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Astra Space , the launch troupe that locomote public in 2021 at a $ 2.1 billion valuation , is going individual again after months of burning cash and failing to stop up alternate investment .
The companyannounced Thursdaythat its board had accepted an offer from its CEO , Chris Kemp , and its CTO , Adam London , to purchase the remaining Astra stock at a toll of $ 0.50 per share . The pot is expected to close in the second twenty-five percent of 2024 , at which time Astra will give up trading on the Nasdaq .
It is a precipitous fall for the party , which raised nearly $ 500 million from investor on the premise of an ultra - cheap launching vehicle that could be scaled to execute hundreds of mission per class . In an investor introduction from February 2021 , Astra touted a “ mass bring about portable launch system ” that could establish from anywhere in the earth . The company told investor it anticipated a bi - weekly launch cadency in 2024 .
But the company never accomplish that ( though they did reach orbit twice ) , present a series of setbacks including an alarming sideways launch anomaly in 2021 and a issue of fictive jump for commercial launch over the year . Kemp ’s suggestion that bankruptcy rates weigh less the more frequent launches were may also have rattled likely customers .
At the clock time Astra complete its SPAC merger it also acquire Apollo Fusion , an electric actuation developer for ballistic capsule , with the bearing of integrate those systems into an Astra planet constellation . That constellation never follow to fruition , however , and while the company did come after in sell many Apollo Fusion actuation system it has struggled to move around that backlog into revenue .
Things come to a head last November , when Kemp and London proposed to take the company private at $ 1.50 a share – around double the price the stock was trading at then . After that mass stalled , they submitted the retool offer . A exceptional citizens committee of the board , assembled to reexamine Astra ’s options , warned in a filing at the beginning of the month that the only alternative to Kemp and London ’s marriage proposal was failure .
Correction : The clause originally put forward that Astra reached orbit once . It has been updated to excogitate that Astra reached cranial orbit twice .