German company Isar Aerospace reached orbit on its second Spectrum launch, lifting off at 21:12 BST from Andøya Spaceport in Norway. The two-stage launcher, which stands 28 meters tall with a 2-meter diameter and ten engines, carries payloads of up to 1,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit.
The flight, named "Onward and Upward," carried six commercial and educational CubeSats and an experiment designed to test new technologies in orbit. The mission is supported by the European Space Agency's Boost! program, which backed Isar Aerospace's development of the Spectrum launch service.
Isar Aerospace completed the first major milestone of the ESA's European Launcher Challenge, which requires launch service providers to achieve an orbital launch by 2027. The company was founded eight years ago and earlier received support from ESA's Business Incubation Centre as well as multiple rounds of co-funding through the Boost! program.
ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher called it "a historic launch from Andøya Spaceport in Norway" and "the first European Launcher Challenger to reach orbit." Géraldine Naja, ESA's Director of Space Transportation, said Isar Aerospace had achieved what no other European company has done: "reach orbit with their own launch vehicle."
