Astra came close to doing achieving what DARPA has sought for two decades

Astra could not quite get its payload off the ground on Monday.

On Monday, Astra came within 53 seconds of launching its Rocket 3.0 from a spaceport in southern Alaska. With less than a minute to go in the countdown, a sensor delivered some data about the rocket that Astra's chief executive, Chris Kemp, said "really concerned us."

Despite the prospect of losing out on a $2 million check from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and potentially $10 million more later this month, Astra engineers halted the launch attempt. They thought the problem may lie with a faulty sensor, as bad data was intermittent, but they weren't sure.

"By making the decision to not fly today, we’ll have the opportunity to fly this rocket safely at a later date," Kemp said. He said the company is likely "weeks" away from trying again, rather than months.

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