Two hurricane research satellites lost in Astra launch failure

Two small NASA hurricane research satellites were destroyed after launch from Cape Canaveral Sunday when their commercial rocket, provided by Astra, prematurely shut down its upper stage engine before reaching the mission’s target orbit. The twin nanosatellites — each about the size of a shoebox — were the vanguard of a planned fleet of six cyclone monitoring spacecraft to measure temperature, moisture, and other parameters inside hurricanes and tropical storms. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 13)