The launch was a failure. I have cued the replay to start one minute before liftoff, at the 58:15 mark in the Webcast.
The liftoff and first stage ascent appeared normal. After first stage cutoff, the video switched (at the 1:02:21 point) to a split-screen rocket camera showing what appeared to be a view from inside the first stage on the left and a view from the second stage at the right. When stage separation occurred, the second stage appeared to move a short distance and then hang up. This is followed at 1:02:31 by a bright flash, which might indicate the second stage engine firing while still inside the interstage of the first stage. Two seconds later, the second stage view at the right shows the second stage engine nozzle against the Earth which seems to indicate the stage is tumbling end over end at about 720° per second. I’'m not sure what to make of the view from the first stage, which for the first second or so might show the second stage engine starting, but then shows bright specks going from lower left to upper right. The upper stage continues to go all Kerbal. At 1:03:06 the video from the rocket cuts out and there begins a long, Soviet-style blackout of information from mission control or the public affairs lady, followed at 1:12:39 by a statement which echoed this simultaneous tweet from Astra CEO Chris Kemp.
Oh dear, an issue. Thank goodness it wasn’t an anomaly! (Note the idiot apostrophe in the tweet—they had four customers, not one, so it should have said “customers’ payloads”.)
Astra Space, you’ll recall, is the company who, on 2020-09-11 tweeted that they’d painted the name of a racist movement on their launch tower.
Here is today’s stock chart for Astra Space (ASTR:NASDAQ), The times in the chart are U.S. Eastern Standard Time, in which the launch occurred at 15:00.
Get woke, go broke.