A German start-up’s orbital rocket spun out and crashed seconds after take-off Sunday, in a rare European test flight that the makers said “met its set goals.”
The flight, from a spaceport in northern Norway, marked the first time a rocket capable of reaching orbit was launched from continental Europe excluding Russia, manufacturer Isar Aerospace said.
The rocket, called Spectrum, was airborne for only around half a minute before dramatically falling into the chilly Norwegian Sea.
Isar Aerospace and other European start-ups are scrambling to seize a segment of a rapidly expanding space race, currently dominated by companies and government-owned entities in the United States and China.
And the company framed Sunday’s launch as a step toward that goal, saying in a statement: “Isar Aerospace met its set goals: After ignition of its first stage, Spectrum successfully lifted off … for its first test flight lasting approximately 30 seconds. This allowed the company to gather a substantial amount of flight data and experience to apply on future missions.”
“As a company with European roots, we are proud to have shown that Europe has an enduring capacity for bold thinking and grand achievements,” Daniel Metzler, the company’s CEO and co-founder, said in the statement. “We will be able to serve customers from around the world to bring their satellites into space and to help Europe solve a major blind spot in its security architecture: access to space.”
The European Space Agency, which is made up of 23 member nations, has already launched rockets into orbit, as have companies such as the French-run ArianeGroup. But both have launched flights from outside Europe, mainly at spaceports in the Americas.
Leaders in the space industry include Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has launched hundreds of rockets into orbit.
Europe has historically lagged behind, both in the initial space race of the 1960s and 1970s and the subsequent rush by commercial companies to reach orbit.