Isar Aerospace rocket reaches orbit from northern Norway
Spectrum reached an initial elliptical orbit on its second launch attempt, though payload deployment and full mission success remained pending.
Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket reached an initial elliptical orbit after launching from Andøya Space Center in northern Norway on 5 September, in a milestone the German company and Space.com described as the first orbital launch from Western European soil.
The rocket lifted off at 4:12 p.m. EDT, or 2012 GMT, and reached orbit a little over seven minutes later. Spectrum carried five cubesats and one non-deployable scientific experiment.
The mission was Spectrum’s second launch attempt. Its March 2025 debut ended less than a minute after liftoff, with Isar Aerospace attributing the failure to an unintended vent-valve opening and loss of attitude control.
Several delays and scrubs affected the second attempt, including issues involving a pressurisation valve, weather, a boat in the launch area, a pressure vessel leak and off-nominal behaviour in the vehicle’s fluid systems.
Full mission success had not been confirmed after orbital insertion. The upper stage still needed to perform a circularisation burn and deploy the payloads from the initial elliptical orbit.
Spectrum is a 28-metre, two-stage rocket designed to carry about 1,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. Isar says its manufacturing facility near Munich can produce more than 30 rockets annually. The Western European record excludes orbital launches from Russia’s European territory, including the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
