Camille Naredo

European orbital rocket crashes after launch

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<p>OSLO, Norway -- The first orbital rocket launched from continental Europe crashed seconds after blast-off Sunday, in a closely watched test for the continent&#x27;s bid to build a new space economy.</p><p>The Spectrum rocket, developed by German start-up Isar Aerospace, started smoking from its sides, then crashed back to Earth with a powerful explosion just after launching from Norway&#x27;s Andoya Spaceport in the Arctic, in live video broadcast on YouTube.</p><p>Isar Aerospace, which had said it did not expect to reach orbit with the launch, said the two-stage rocket fell into the sea, adding that &quot;the launch pad seems to be intact&quot;.</p><p>Andoya Space, the Norwegian public firm that operates the spaceport, said &quot;crisis response&quot; measures had been activated following the &quot;incident&quot;.</p><p>Regional police said no injuries or damage beyond the rocket itself had been reported.</p><p>Orbital rockets are designed to place loads such as satellites into or beyond Earth&#x27;s orbit.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>- &#x27;Great success&#x27; -</strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Bw750ZtqGcs?autoplay=1&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div><p>Ahead of the launch, which had been repeatedly postponed due to weather conditions, Isar Aerospace had downplayed expectations, saying the goal was not to reach orbit in its first attempt.</p><p>&quot;Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great success. We had a clean liftoff, 30 seconds of flight and even got to validate our Flight Termination System,&quot; said Daniel Metzler, the firm&#x27;s co-founder and chief executive.</p><p>Two more Spectrum rockets are already in development, the company said.</p><p>The 28-meter (92-foot) tall, two-meter diameter rocket has a one-ton carrying capacity, but was unloaded for the test flight.</p><p>Spectrum&#x27;s blast-off was the first of an orbital launch vehicle from the European continent, excluding Russia, and Europe&#x27;s first financed almost exclusively by the private sector.</p><p>&quot;Today is an important day for German and European space travel,&quot; said German Economy Minister Robert Habeck.</p><p>&quot;Isar Aerospace can and will make a decisive contribution to securing Europe&#x27;s independent access to space.&quot;</p><p>A first European orbital launch attempt was made in 2023 by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson&#x27;s Virgin Orbit.</p><p>It attempted to use a Boeing 747 to launch a rocket into orbit from southwest England, but failed, and the company folded.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>- &#x27;New Space&#x27; -</strong></div><p>Europe has had no access to Russian space stations or launchers since Moscow&#x27;s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which sent diplomatic relations on a downward spiral.</p><p>Europe&#x27;s space industry has also seen delays in the development of the Ariane 6 rocket and the suspension of the Vega-C satellite launcher after an accident.</p><p>It wasn&#x27;t until March 6, when the first commercial flight of an Ariane 6 rocket took off from French Guyana, that Europe was able to regain launch independence after several months without its own access to space.</p><p>While the US already has giants such as Elon Musk&#x27;s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos-founded Blue Origin, in Europe, commercial space activities driven by private companies -- dubbed &quot;New Space&quot; -- are still in their infancy.</p><p>Isar Aerospace was founded in 2018 in Munich.</p><p>Europe is also home to Germany&#x27;s HyImpulse and Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), French groups Latitude and MaiaSpace and Spain&#x27;s PLD Space, all racing to establish themselves as key players in the sector.</p><p>Sunday&#x27;s launch generated &quot;tonnes of data that the teams can now evaluate and learn from&quot;, an Isar Aerospace commentator said on the YouTube live stream.</p><p>In parallel with the development of new rockets, a number of spaceport projects have emerged across Europe, from the Portuguese Azores to the British Shetland Islands, Norway&#x27;s Andoya and Esrange in neighbouring Sweden, many vying to be the first to launch.</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div>

<p>The first orbital rocket launched from continental Europe crashed seconds after blast-off Sunday, in a closely watched test for the continent's bid to build a new space economy.</p>

The first orbital rocket launched from continental Europe crashed seconds after blast-off Sunday, in a closely watched test for the continent's bid to build a new space economy.

European orbital rocket crashes after launch

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European orbital rocket crashes after launch

Agence France-Presse,

Pierre-Henry Deshayes

Published Mar 31, 2025 12:28 AM PHT

Read More:

Europe

space

astronomy

orbital rocket

Spectrum

Germany

Isar Aerospace

Norway

Andoya Spaceport

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