German startup Isar Aerospace successfully launches its Spectrum rocket
Spectrum just after clearing the launch tower
After one launch failure last year and three scrubs in January, in March, and in June, German startup Isar Aerospace today successfully launched its Spectrum rocket for the first time, lifting off from Norway’s Andoya spaceport. As of posting the smallsat payloads have not yet been deployed.
With this launch, Isar becomes the first new European rocket startup to reach orbit. It is also the first solely German rocket company to build and launch a rocket since the V2 rocket during World War II.
The launch was also the first orbital launch from Andoya, putting that spaceport ahead of its European competitors, two spaceports in the United Kingdom (Saxavord and Sutherland), one in Sweden (Esrange), and two proposed off-shore launch platforms based in Germany.
For Europe in 2026, ESA’s government company Arianespace has completed four launches, Italy’s Avio one, and now Isar one. The leader board however for the 2026 launch race remains the same:
105 SpaceX
55 China
13 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
11 Russia
For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 105 to 98.
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The only other LV the Germans had access to were old UR-100N ICBMs
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003ESASP.542..415V/abstract
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rokot
I am glad to see all-German liquid-fueled rocketry on the mend.
Will be interesting to see how the rest of Europe reacts.
Will they accept a private commercial launcher, or will they sneer with socialist disdain, and react with extensive taxation and regulation.
Even European socialists have their priorities. Their highest tends to be dunking on the US. So, private sector or not, the Isar launch seems likely to be viewed favorably as evidence Europe is able to be less dependent on we Yanks. Germans, in particular, will be favorable. Also, I should think, the Spaniards as they, too, have a horse in this race and would, I’m sure, very much like to be the next to establish their orbital launch bona fides. Even the French will be supportive as they also have some skin in this game, though they came late to the party and Maiaspace isn’t exactly a start-up in the usual sense of the phrase.
As I have been reporting now for almost three years, the member nations of ESA had become fed up with Arianespace and its inability to compete effectively with the American private sector. Germany and Spain quickly helped new rocket startups independent of that government run division. Italy pushed to get control of the Vega rockets out of Arianespace’s control and back in the hands of Avio, that builds it. France then followed by encouraging new startups, with Maiaspace in the lead. It also demanded that management of French Guiana get taken from Arianespace and returned to its space agency CNES.
These nations want these startups to succeed. At least in the near future we should expect them to help not hinder them. In the long run of course there are no guarantees.
While I agree that the various european countries want their startups to succeed, and hopefully compete with SpaceX, at least to the point where Europe can provide it’s own launch, I don’t think they’ll be able to help themselves. These companies will inevitably run into issues with delays in permitting, lawsuits, regulation, promises of missions that never get funded, etc. I think even if these countries try and get out of the way and let the companies succeed, they simply don’t know how to actually do it. It’s completely foreign to the way they operate.
Heh. I am never one to doubt the ability of government to screw things up, so I certainly share your skepticism.
However, to get a clear picture, we must remember that with these new rocket companies it is policies of the individual countries that matter, not the stupid bureaucratic top-down EU or ESA. And it certainly appears these countries have a better sense of what is needed.
In a sense, Europe is playing out its version of the American federalist system, which by the way works wonderfully if followed. They are shifting regulation and private enterprise to the smaller units (the states), rather than let a central authority (EU or ESA) control things.
Glad to see a post on this – I hadn’t heard that Isar had pulled this off today.
A small pedantic niggle, perhaps? Might be more accurate to say that it was ” the first solely German rocket *organization*” since 1945, since the V2 was really developed under the direct control of the German Army Weapons Office (Heereswaffenamt), not a private company – and then operated first by the Wehrmacht, and then the Waffen SS. So the V2 was more like the Titan or even the Saturn V than the Falcon 9 or the Spectrum. And this is a favorable comparison for the Spectrum, and not just because it’s not intended to blow up the widows and cripples in old London town – it’s a rocket operated by the private sector, not the state! A state subsidy or two of sorts lurking in there, yes, but not all that different from, say, COTS.
How the FRG and the EU will treat it going forward remains to be seen, but both seem desperate enough for European-sourced launch capability that they just may well treat this goose well rather than make dinner out of it. But then again, given the current mindsets of both governments, I might not bet my life on it.
Wait until Isar starts flying from the concrete slab on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. The Canadian media will be crowing about there being a “sovereign” launch capability in the country and that they’ll “elbows up” their way to the stars past “bad orange man”.
Globalism had a corrosive effect, where national pride is responsible for this latest flurry of activity.
Both the US and China have it all over them—and they can’t stand it.
Isar payloads
According to the AMSAT mailing list, Framsat-1 and SpaceTeamSat1 will be operating in digital modes in the 70 cm amateur radio band. I’m not set up for that yet, so I won’t be working either satellite. Once their Keplerian elements become available, I should be able to hear
Both cubesats have already been assigned NORAD ID numbers. Here’s more information about them (German language website):
Planned amateur radio satellites