Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket, lifted off successfully from Andoya Spaceport, Norway on the evening of 5 September, marking the first successful privately developed and funded orbital launch from continental Europe. The two stage vehicle, standing 28 metres tall and 2 metres in diameter, is built to carry payloads of up to 1000 kg to low Earth orbit using its ten engines.
The flight follows the company’s first test launch on 30 March 2025, which cleared the pad but ended about 30 seconds later when the vehicle received a termination command, triggered by an unintended opening of a vent valve combined with a loss of attitude control at the start of the roll manoeuvre. That flight still validated many of Spectrum’s systems and its vertically integrated, largely in house approach to building a small lift launcher. Isar Aerospace used the findings to strengthen the flight control software and add environmental margins, in line with its “launch, learn, repeat” philosophy.
Unlike the first test, this second flight carried payloads: six commercial and educational CubeSats and an experiment meant to prove new technologies in orbit while giving students across Europe an educational experience. The mission, named “Onward and Upward,” is supported by ESA’s Boost! programme, which has backed Spectrum’s development since Isar Aerospace’s early days at ESA’s Business Incubation Centre.
The launch also carries weight for the European Launcher Challenge, for which Isar Aerospace was one of four companies selected as a launch service operator in 2025, with a contract signed recently. That programme requires providers to reach orbit by 2028, and this flight makes Isar Aerospace the first of the four winners to hit that milestone.
Founded only eight years ago and backed by the European Space Agency, Isar Aerospace has taken a first concrete step in the direction Europe’s emerging small lift launchers still need to travel: building the flight heritage and operational cadence to serve growing demand from European customers. ESA’s Director General, Josef Aschbacher, called it “yet another step towards a more diverse, autonomous European launch service sector.” The success of European launchers is an enabler for the wider New Space economy to grow faster.
Image Credit: Isar Aerospace
Isar Aerospace achieves first launch to orbit from continental Europe
First contracts kick off European Launcher Challenge
Isar Aerospace wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Aerospace
Isar Aerospace First Launch Does Not Go as Planned: Valuable Data Collected Despite Early ‘Full Spectrum’ Flight Termination