"Astra is cutting about 70 employees, as well as reallocating about 50 personnel from its rocket development program over to its space products unit, which builds the company's spacecraft engines."

As a big fan of their spacecraft engine business, de-emphasizing the small launch market makes me more interested in this business as an investor again.

#Astra #HallEffectThrusters #NewSpace

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/business/money-report/astra-conducts-layoffs-raises-debt-and-shifts-focus-to-spacecraft-engines-in-bid-to-survive/3080454/

#Starlink 🛰️ uses #HallEffectThrusters, which is a kind of #SpacecraftElectricPropulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_electric_propulsion. 70% of the recent poll have just been plain wrong 🔮 about the type of #propulsion : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster#Starlink
#HallEffectThruster (#IonThruster engines) use an #electrostatic potential to accelerate #ions up to high speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-effect_thruster#Principle_of_operation
#Electromagnetic thrusters (#PlasmaPropulsion engines) accelerate #ions either by the #Lorentz force or by the effect of electromagnetic fields where the electric field is not in the direction of the acceleration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_propulsion_engine#Engine_types
It's all explained by #GalileoGalilei 📆 1564, #MichaelFaraday 📆 1791, #HendrikLorentz 📆 1853, #AlbertEinstein 📆 1879.Also check #Minkowski's 📆 1864 #spacetime 🤔 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_spacetime. Short after the #StoneAge 🐒 , #carburetors were usual, fueled by fossilized remains of dead plants 😁 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carburetor

#Starlink 🛰️ uses #HallEffectThrusters, which is a kind of #SpacecraftElectricPropulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_electric_propulsion. 70% of the recent poll have just been plain wrong 🔮 about the type of #propulsion : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster#Starlink
#HallEffectThruster (#IonThruster engines) use an #electrostatic potential to accelerate #ions up to high speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-effect_thruster#Principle_of_operation
#Electromagnetic thrusters (#PlasmaPropulsion engines) accelerate #ions either by the #Lorentz force or by the effect of electromagnetic fields where the electric field is not in the direction of the acceleration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_propulsion_engine#Engine_types
It's all explained by #GalileoGalilei 📆 1564, #MichaelFaraday 📆1791, #HendrikLorentz 📆 1853, #AlbertEinstein 📆 1879.Also check #Minkowski's 📆 1864 #spacetime 🤔 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_spacetime. Short after the #StoneAge 🐒 , #carburetors were usual, fueled by fossilized remains of dead plants 😁 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carburetor