Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket reached orbit and deployed satellites from Andoya in northern Norway on Saturday night, the first commercial European company to do so and on only its second flight. It lands four days before Macron’s Paris space summit, which SpaceX and Blue Origin withdrew from last week.
Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket reached orbit and deployed satellites after lifting from Andoya in northern Norway on Saturday night. The German company says it is the first commercial space firm in Europe to put satellites into orbit, and it did so on its second flight.
The rocket left the pad at 22:12 CEST, on a mission the company called Onward and Upward.
It reached orbit about four minutes later, in what Bloomberg reported as the first private space mission to reach orbit from continental Europe.
The first attempt, in March last year, lasted roughly 30 seconds before crashing. This year’s tries were held up by weather, technical faults and a boat straying into the range.
