OSLO, Norway (AP) – A private European aerospace startup said it successfully completed its first test flight of an orbital launch vehicle from Norway on Sunday.
ISAR Aerospace, headquartered in Munich, said it had fired a spectral rocket from Andea Island in northern Norway.
The 28m (92ft) long spectrum is a two-stage launch vehicle specially designed to bring medium-sized satellites into orbit. The rocket was lifted off the pad at 12:30pm (1030 GMT) on Sunday and flew for about 30 seconds before the flight was over, ISAR said.
“This allowed the company to gather a significant amount of flight data and experience to apply it to future missions,” ISAR said in a news release. “After the flight ended with T+30 seconds, the launch vehicle fell into the sea in a controlled manner.”
The launch was subject to a variety of factors including weather and safety, and Sunday liftoff followed a week of poor conditions, including scrub launches for Monday and Saturday weather restrictions due to unfavourable winds.
“Our first test flight met all expectations and was a huge success,” ISAR CEO and co-founder Daniel Metzler said in a news release. “We had a clean lift-off, a 30-second flight and even managed to verify the end-of-flight system.”
The company said it would almost rule out the possibility that the rocket would reach orbit on its first full flight, and would make it a successful 30-second flight. ISAR Aerospace aims to gather as much data and experience as possible in its initial integration tests of all systems of launch vehicles developed in-house.
ISAR Aerospace is separate from the European Space Agency, or ESA, funded by 23 Member States.
ESA has put rockets and satellites into orbit for many years, mainly from French Guiana overseas in South America, and from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Original issue: March 30th, 2025 8:10am EDT
