Isar Aerospace, the German launch services company that builds the Spectrum launch vehicle, achieved a major company and European milestone on Saturday when it reached orbit successfully on its second flight and deployed five satellites. It’s the first time a commercial company has reached orbit from Western European soil.
The two-stage rocket lifted off from Andøya Space in northern Norway just after 10 p.m. local time. Europe’s only other operational orbital rockets (not including Russia’s), Ariane 6 and Vega C, are run by Arianespace and fly from French Guiana in South America.
Spectrum’s first flight failed shortly after liftoff in March 2025, and this second flight went through several scrubbed launches this year, including a leaking pressure vessel in the spring, before Saturday’s success.
Watch the Spectrum launch highlights
Orbit Achieved. Payload Deployed.
Mission ‘Onward and Upward’ delivered our first customer satellites to orbit, achieving major milestones:
✅ MaxQ
✅ Stage separation
✅ Stage 2 engine ignition
✅ Fairing separation
✅ ORBIT
✅ Second engine cutoff and transfer orbit injection… pic.twitter.com/gEa99hJyAf— Isar Aerospace (@isaraerospace) September 6, 2026
Options: Andøya, French Guiana and Spaceport Nova Scotia
Andøya suits polar orbits well but not lower-inclination ones — the angle between an orbit and the equator — because a rocket generally can’t reach an orbit tilted lower than its own launch latitude without burning extra fuel on a costly plane change. Enter Spaceport Nova Scotia.
Isar is also building a dedicated Spectrum launch complex at Spaceport Nova Scotia, under a 10-year, roughly $155-million deal ($US 112.5 million) with Maritime Launch Services signed in July. Isar and Maritime Launch pushed back a deadline to finalize the remaining details of that agreement, from Sept. 1 to Sept. 15, earlier this week. The first launch from Spaceport Nova Scotia is targeting sometime in 2028.
While Andøya suits polar orbits, the launch pad at Spaceport Nova Scotia would let Spectrum fly east over open water into lower-inclination orbits, chief engineer Nikolaos Perakis said on a livestream of Saturday’s launch.
Isar is also planning to launch from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, which operates under a dual-partnership framework shared between the French National Center for Space Studies (CNES) and the European Space Agency.
“Launch continues to be the largest bottleneck for the global space industry, and from today on, there is a true alternative for commercial and institutional customers,” said Daniel Metzler, the co-founder and chief executive of Isar Aerospace.
The company, founded in 2018 near Munich, says it has five more Spectrum rockets already in production and is building a factory meant to turn out up to 40 vehicles a year.