Small rocket company Astra\u2019s launch today out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, ended in failure a little more than three minutes after takeoff, when an unexpected issue cropped up during flight and prevented the vehicle from reaching orbit. It\u2019s unclear what exactly happened, but live footage from the rocket showed it spinning out of control just after the two main stages of the vehicle separated as planned.<\/p>\n

Today marked Astra\u2019s first time launching out of the Cape, after launching primarily out of Kodiak, Alaska, for all of its previous missions and test flights. NASA was the customer for today\u2019s mission, marking the first time Astra launched a payload for the space agency. Called the ELaNa41 mission, the launch carried four small satellites known as CubeSats for NASA, part of an ongoing initiative by NASA to send experimental small spacecraft into orbit from various contenders. <\/p>\n