Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, October 10 (Xinhua)-- the cause of the accident is still under investigation because Astra lost a rocket, including two NASA cube satellites, in its first launch on June 12 this year. But now, forced to do so, NASA is looking for new rockets, citing the "urgent" need to track satellites.

NASA said it asked more companies to bid for the launch of its TROPICS satellite in 2023. The main purpose is to monitor tropical cyclones and observe the structure of precipitation and the timing of storms. This is a necessary step to launch TRPICS's cube constellation "in time", NASA said.

In September, several large hurricanes or severe tropical storms, such as Ian, hit parts of Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico. With climate change, similar storms continue to intensify around the world, making the NASA's need for the stable launch of these satellites more urgent.

In order to put TROPICS into orbit by 2023, NASA said it would seek help from 13 pre-approved companies under a commercial launch services contract called VADR (Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare).

"the VADR contract allows 13 companies selected this year to re-bid for the 'TROPICS' launch project, enabling the agency and external stakeholders to use' TROPICS' data more quickly,'" the VADR executive statement said.

CTOnews.com learned that Astra's Rocket 3.3 had failed in recent launch attempts, prompting the company to cancel the series of rockets in August and focus on an improved version, which the company called Rocket 4.0.

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