Isar Aerospace Reaches Orbit with Second Spectrum Launch
The successful second flight gives Europe a commercial launch option from a private company, and Isar is already building Spectrum rockets 3 through 7 with a factory planned for up to 40 launches a year.
Reporting from 1 source: GIGAZINE.
German launch company Isar Aerospace reached orbit on its second Spectrum flight, deploying payloads from Andoya, Norway, a first for a European private company. The debut mission in March 2025 was aborted about 30 seconds after liftoff after an anomaly. CEO Daniel Metzler said Europe now has its own route to space access, and the company is scaling production toward 40 rockets a year.
Isar Aerospace, founded in 2018 and based in Ottobrunn near Munich, builds the two-stage liquid-fuel Spectrum rocket, rated to carry up to 1000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. The first flight, "Going Full Spectrum," on March 30, 2025, was aborted about 30 seconds after liftoff; the company traced the fault to an unintended exhaust valve opening and loss of attitude control at the start of roll operations.
The second mission, "Onward and Upward," launched from the same site at Andoya, Norway, about a year and a half later and deployed its payloads. Isar is already manufacturing Spectrum rockets 3 through 7, and a new factory would give it capacity for up to 40 rockets a year.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.