Astra lays off 16% after nearly tripling its workforce last year

Astra, a startup that went public last year, told investors on Tuesday it had laid off 16% of its workforce as part of a broader strategy to accelerate narrowing the financial trail and reducing expenses.

The company also said it would reduce short-term investments in space services to expand its core business: namely, launch and spacecraft engines. The latter segment in particular has become a growing source of revenue for Astra, with the company reporting that it has 237 committed orders for its spacecraft engines from entities including Maxar, OneWeb and Astroscale. This represents a 130% increase over last quarter.

Astra is also developing Launch System 2, comprising a new rocket, software suite and ground system, to replace the lightweight Rocket 3 vehicle which has experienced a number of launch failures this year. (Astra announced in August that it was fully wrapping up this rocket program.) The company plans to conduct the first flight tests in the second half of 2023.

The new financial strategy comes just months after Astra hired a new COO, Axel Martinez, a career executive with extensive experience in capital management. At the time, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the space company needed the expertise in a risk-averse stock market environment with high inflation, interest rates and other factors weighing on it. markets.

The layoffs cast an unflattering light on Astra's rapid growth: CEO Chris Kemp told investors on a Tuesday call that the company had tripled in size in the space of a year, from to over 400 people. Given this number, Astra has reduced its workforce by at least 64 people.

The company ended the quarter with $151 million in cash. It reported revenue of $2.8 million from its space engines and a net loss of $199.1 million. Astra expects the payroll savings resulting from the layoffs to be realized in the first quarter of next year.