What’s next for Astra, with CEO Chris Kemp

Happy Q4–and fiscal year 2023–to those who celebrate, and welcome back to another episode of Pathfinder. Today we’re back on the rocket beat and we’ll get a much-needed company update from Astra ($ASTR) CEO Chris Kemp. Today’s episode is brought to you by SpiderOak Mission Systems. Take the Payload/SpiderOak survey and contribute to the future of space security: The backstory: Astra’s first launch of NASA’s TROPICS satellites ended in failure this summer. Shortly thereafter, Astra scrapped all flights for 2022 and accelerated its pivot to a larger, more capable launcher. As it moves customer payloads to the Rocket 4.0 manifest, Astra says it will launch scientific spacecraft for NASA that are comparable to TROPICS payloads. All the while, shares of Astra have been in free-fall: $ASTR is -90% YTD. Chris still sounded a confident tone, saying the company has the cash to get to Rocket 4.0. Plus, “we have a tremendous number of assets sitti