Isar Aerospace’s first launch attempt fails seconds after lift-off
The first launch attempt of the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket from Norway’s upgraded orbital Andoya spaceport failed early this morning shortly after lift off, when the rocket started to swivel out of control. When its engines then cut off the rocket then fell to the ground and crashed.
The live stream at the link cuts off at that point, with the screen capture to the right the last thing shown. BtB’s stringer Jay however found a different viewpoint that shows the stage falling and crashing to the ground. I have embedded that video below.
As the company admitted repeatedly prior to launch, this was a test flight. They were quite ready to see such a failure, with they main goal gathering data on the rocket and its systems to figure out what needs to be revised and improved. From the video it appears the company above all needs to upgrade its flight termination system. Out of control rockets should not be allowed to crash. When they fail so soon after launch it is better to hit the self-destruct button and destroy them in the air. Isar’s rocket clearly failed in this matter.
For Norway however this launch is a resounding success. Andoya has now become the first spaceport on the continent of Europe to attempt an orbital launch. Though Andoya has been used for suborbital launches for decades, it was only upgraded for commercial orbital launches in the past two years. Unlike the United Kingdom, where two spaceports in Scotland and the Shetland Islands were proposed more than six years ago and have been blocked by government red tape and some local opposition, preventing any launches for years, Norway streamlined the licensing process at Andoya so that launches can proceed with speed.
Expect business to flow from these stymied spaceports to Andoya.
Video of Isar Aerospace Spectrum hitting the ground.
Video from @vgnett pic.twitter.com/lnCe90a17l
— VSB – Space Coast West (@spacecoastwest) March 30, 2025
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The first launch attempt of the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket from Norway’s upgraded orbital Andoya spaceport failed early this morning shortly after lift off, when the rocket started to swivel out of control. When its engines then cut off the rocket then fell to the ground and crashed.
The live stream at the link cuts off at that point, with the screen capture to the right the last thing shown. BtB’s stringer Jay however found a different viewpoint that shows the stage falling and crashing to the ground. I have embedded that video below.
As the company admitted repeatedly prior to launch, this was a test flight. They were quite ready to see such a failure, with they main goal gathering data on the rocket and its systems to figure out what needs to be revised and improved. From the video it appears the company above all needs to upgrade its flight termination system. Out of control rockets should not be allowed to crash. When they fail so soon after launch it is better to hit the self-destruct button and destroy them in the air. Isar’s rocket clearly failed in this matter.
For Norway however this launch is a resounding success. Andoya has now become the first spaceport on the continent of Europe to attempt an orbital launch. Though Andoya has been used for suborbital launches for decades, it was only upgraded for commercial orbital launches in the past two years. Unlike the United Kingdom, where two spaceports in Scotland and the Shetland Islands were proposed more than six years ago and have been blocked by government red tape and some local opposition, preventing any launches for years, Norway streamlined the licensing process at Andoya so that launches can proceed with speed.
Expect business to flow from these stymied spaceports to Andoya.
Video of Isar Aerospace Spectrum hitting the ground.
Video from @vgnett pic.twitter.com/lnCe90a17l
— VSB – Space Coast West (@spacecoastwest) March 30, 2025
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Here’s some drone footage.
https://x.com/KSpaceAcademy/status/1906341521097400526
We’re going to need a few years for an environmental impact study on the marine environment. Sarcasm?
While you have to expect problems on any first launch, losing stability control that early in the flight is not promising. Failure modes that the older companies haven’t seen in decades is not a good start. Makes you wonder how much, if any, in the way of experienced engineers they have in the company, or if they’re starting from scratch with just book knowledge.
I wondered about this, too. There’s some discussion at the NSF forum that on a launcher this small, under local regs, the FTS merely disables the engines when the failure criteria are met, rather than detonating explosives. If true, then maybe there *was* an FTS success here. But I have yet to see anything from Isar clarifying this.
At the bottom of the video, just to the left of center, are 3-4…people, penguins? Whoever they are, I’m glad the rocket did not fall on them!
Space is hard . . .
The video from the drone camera shows the rocket plunging into the sea with no flight termination system activation to be seen. The ensuing explosion did remove all of the snow from the roof of at least one building visible on the left side of the video. IMHO, the rocket looked good with all engines burning. Once the oscillations began, they became too dynamic and any compensations from engine gimbling was just ineffective. I’m sure that some small detail will be identified as the culprit that kept this rocket from reaching orbit.
Ronaldus…
North pole penguins?
As to those oscillations, from knowledge, just having the wrong arithmetic operation on a minor factor in a control algorithm can cause that kind of problem.
Yeah Ronaldus, the global warming killed the north pole penguins.
But I see the point that it should have kaboomed before reaching the ground or water. There could have been walruses or whales there! It would be interesting to know the flight termination methodology.
Post brought to you partially by sarcasm.
I have no idea what kind, if any, of FTS is installed on that rocket. As has been said, per their regs, all that’s required is engine termination, which certainly happened, whether by command or not. But there is a certain logic in not deliberately detonating a rocket below a certain altitude, the debris field would have most likely been quite a bit wider and mostly over the launch facilities if they’d blown the rocket up when and where it failed. As is, it had enough horizontal velocity built up that the ground impact was, barely, far enough away from the facilities to avoid serious damage.
Isar is claiming success with “30 seconds” of sustained flight, but that didn’t happen. You can see the thrust-vector oscillations start at about T+14s just as the rocket plume emerged from its contrail.
From the outside it looked a lot like pilot-induced oscillation, so likely a guidance & control issue, but only telemetry will show for sure.
”It would be interesting to know the flight termination methodology.”
The flight termination methodology was to terminate thrust by shutting down the engines, which happened about T+25s or so.
Sigh. These people tried launching a rocket into orbit. What did y’all do today?
Yeah, me neither.
From https://x.com/ask_e_ladden/status/1906368554024194214
https://t.co/FO0V3hMoKK
Maybe puffins instead of penguins?
If the crash zone is water I can see a reason to not blow up the rocket.
At lower altitudes it might be better to let if fall into the water so it might stay together and possibly not leak or explode.,
It could also leave more evidence intact for study.
That one didn’t survive though.
Patrick Underwood,
I’m not getting the impression that anyone was criticizing the Isar engineers. Control is a difficult thing to do; it is just that several companies have made it look easy. Over the years, I have noted other test rockets also weave visibly during ascent.
My Automatic Control Systems class started out very challenging, as we had to learn how to overcome the damping problem and the sneaky ways in which it manifests itself. Analysis for stability was not my forte, because instead of damping out oscillations, like a swinging door does, a system can increase its instability until failure. Fortunately, all my lab work performed properly, and I fooled my professor into believing I knew what I was doing. Maybe I did know, but I sure did not think so. I stayed away from systems control and thermal engineering (which also showed signs of being more art than science).
This may be one of the reasons that the company had previously announced that no matter what happened, they would consider this launch a success. They were bound to learn something. Destined, maybe.
They made it off the pad in an upward direction, not the famous “side step” launch. Scott Manley estimates that they made it to 500 meters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFyMAaeYdvs (17 minutes)
sippin_bourbon says:
“Ronaldus…
North pole penguins?”
Puffins fill the penguin niche in the Arctic, though they are smaller and can still fly a bit. Most likely people. Cheers –
As first launch failures go I’d call it a creditable effort – better than Virgin Orbit, Astra or ABL, about the same as SpaceX, not as good as Firefly or Rocket Lab.
It could be these guys photo bombing the launch.
mystery science theater 3000.
https://wallpapercave.com/wp/wp10287568.png
Astra’s power slide was comical at least.
This looked like something from a Bond movie.