Isar Aerospace has broken the European launch barrier.
The German startup’s Spectrum rocket lifted off the pad at the Andøya spaceport on Sunday, and flew for approximately 30 seconds before crashing just off the coast.
“This test flight met our expectations for a first launch with a completely clean slate design, in every way. As I have experienced before, it normally can take a few attempts to reach orbit, yet after today’s test flight, I am very confident that Isar Aerospace will be one of the fastest to do so,” Bulent Altan, Isar’s chairman and former SpaceX VP, said in a statement.
Despite the crash shortly after launch, Isar Aerospace is planning to launch its second test flight soon. There’s no set launch date yet, as Isar engineers will need to comb through flight data from Sunday’s launch, but the company’s second and third launch vehicles are already in production.
As part of its European Launcher Challenge, ESA is investing hundreds of millions of euros in sovereign launch companies to develop a range of rockets, and now these companies have at least one working spaceport on the continent from which they can launch.
The spaceport offers unique benefits for European satellite companies, who previously needed to ship their payloads across the ocean before reaching orbit. Andøya lowers this transit time and overall mission cost. The spaceport also gives satellite operators the ability to reach polar orbit—a growing preference for commercial and military sats as the Arctic region opens up to more commercial and military maritime traffic.
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