Sep 28, 2025 08:29 PM
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09/as...e-violence
INTRO: There are plenty of rivalries in the US launch industry. People who build big and brawny machines tend to have egos to match. And if you chat up the senior executives of these rocket companies offline, they are often more than happy to say derogatory things about their competitors.
But rarely are such sentiments expressed in public, without filter.
Chris Kemp, the chief executive officer of Astra, apparently didn't get the memo about playing nice. Kemp made some spicy remarks at the Berkeley Space Symposium 2025 earlier this month, billed as the largest undergraduate aerospace event at the university (see video of the talk). He provided an overview of Astra's successes and failures, and generally sought to make a good impression on prospective interns at the company, and future employees. The university is only a few miles away from the company's Bay Area headquarters.
During the speech, however, Kemp periodically deviated from building up Astra to hurling insults at several of his competitors in the launch industry. To be fair to Kemp, some of his criticisms are not without a kernel of truth. But they are uncharacteristically rough all the same, especially given Astra's uneven-at-best launch record and financial solvency to date.
Of Astra's seven operational rocket launches between September 2020 and June 2022, five ended in failure before the company's "Rocket 3" was retired. As these failures mounted, Astra's valuation plummeted from $2.6 billion to $25 million, and to stave off bankruptcy Kemp had to take the company private in 2023 at 50 cents a share. Since then a revamped Astra has been working to develop Rocket 4, and as Ars reported last year it has the potential to become a nice comeback story for the industry.
But Kemp's remarks about his competitors are unlikely to generate any goodwill in the launch industry and may blunt support for Astra's rejuvenation... (MORE - details)
THOSE ATTACKED: Firefly, Blue Origin, SpaceX, Rocketlab
INTRO: There are plenty of rivalries in the US launch industry. People who build big and brawny machines tend to have egos to match. And if you chat up the senior executives of these rocket companies offline, they are often more than happy to say derogatory things about their competitors.
But rarely are such sentiments expressed in public, without filter.
Chris Kemp, the chief executive officer of Astra, apparently didn't get the memo about playing nice. Kemp made some spicy remarks at the Berkeley Space Symposium 2025 earlier this month, billed as the largest undergraduate aerospace event at the university (see video of the talk). He provided an overview of Astra's successes and failures, and generally sought to make a good impression on prospective interns at the company, and future employees. The university is only a few miles away from the company's Bay Area headquarters.
During the speech, however, Kemp periodically deviated from building up Astra to hurling insults at several of his competitors in the launch industry. To be fair to Kemp, some of his criticisms are not without a kernel of truth. But they are uncharacteristically rough all the same, especially given Astra's uneven-at-best launch record and financial solvency to date.
Of Astra's seven operational rocket launches between September 2020 and June 2022, five ended in failure before the company's "Rocket 3" was retired. As these failures mounted, Astra's valuation plummeted from $2.6 billion to $25 million, and to stave off bankruptcy Kemp had to take the company private in 2023 at 50 cents a share. Since then a revamped Astra has been working to develop Rocket 4, and as Ars reported last year it has the potential to become a nice comeback story for the industry.
But Kemp's remarks about his competitors are unlikely to generate any goodwill in the launch industry and may blunt support for Astra's rejuvenation... (MORE - details)
THOSE ATTACKED: Firefly, Blue Origin, SpaceX, Rocketlab