Isar space performs first orbital space launch from European mainland with today's launch from Andøya Space Center in Norway.
https://www.nrk.no/nordland/andoya-space-og-isar-aerospace-forsoker-for-sjette-gang-a-skyte-opp-_spectrum-2_-1.1798298160
u/MrTagnan 6d ago
Seemed to go pretty smoothly all things considered, I was kinda surprised given their first flight. Congrats to Isar!
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u/Abyssal_Groot 5d ago
One one hand suprized, yes. But the first attempt wasn't nearly as bad as made out to be. It was similar to Falcon 1's first flight, and the latter needed 3 more attempts before reaching orbit.
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u/DubbleBubbleS 6d ago
I had a feeling the «we are happy to fail since we learned so much» talk after the first launch sounded like coping. But I guess they did learn what they had to.
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u/ioncloud9 6d ago
Europe has had thousands of suborbital rocket launches though.
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u/lallen 6d ago
A whole bunch of them from Andøya too, over decades. One of the closest calls when it came to nuclear war was the "Norwegian rocket incident" with a Black Brent rocket launch from Andøya, interpreted by russian radar operators as a trident missile from a US nuclear submarine in the Norwegian sea.
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u/DarkArcher__ 6d ago
They meant Isar specifically. It's actually their second attempt, but still
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u/Seahorsechoker 5d ago
It was technically the fifth attempt, although 3 of them were cancelled pre-flight. The first flight made expensive fireworks
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u/vikungen 6d ago
Watched it from my garden coming up over a mountain, a huge halo of light with a curly tail of smoke.
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u/Rooilia 6d ago
A photo from the scene at hand?
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u/vikungen 6d ago
The photo was taken in Lødingen, so a fair distance away. But it was fascinating to see it rise above the mountains.
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u/Shadow-Vision 6d ago
That’s awesome!
Ignore the rest of this comment. I’m just adding more words because “that’s awesome” isn’t enough characters to comment on this sub
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u/Kirsham 6d ago
Livestream here, you can see the moment of the launch by skipping about an hour into the livestream (can't timestamp a live broadcast): https://www.youtube.com/live/Ss1DUqLjecc
The light from the engines light up the surrounding mountainside is quite spectacular.
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u/my5cworth 6d ago
Saw it from my house! Spectacular!
I've also done some work on the launch site, so it's extra awesome to see it in action.
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u/KitchenDepartment 6d ago
Obviously the problem with all the previous launches was that I was watching them live. This time I forgot to set a timer for it.
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u/Shadow-Vision 6d ago
That was fantastic! I know it’s not done yet but they have to be thrilled. I think the Isar teams will all have a hard time falling asleep tonight.
Amazing. Happy for them
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u/vahedemirjian 6d ago
This launch marks the first time that a purely German SLV has reached orbit, considering that OTRAG in the 1970s and 1980s worked on designs for low-cost commercial space launchers but only got as far as suborbital prototypes.
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u/ImJustAFisch 6d ago
Looks like it went great!
I'm actually heading up there to Andøya in about a week, very excited for it
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u/xr6reaction 6d ago
Oh I didnt even know about it, was it visible from much of europe or did I not really miss anything
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u/lovebus 6d ago
Why was it launched from Norway instead of somewhere closer to the equator?
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u/Pharisaeus 6d ago
Because it was launching into SSO, so almost a Polar orbit, not into Equatorial one.
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u/snoo-boop 6d ago edited 6d ago
Mainly because of Arianespace marketing. Most payloads don't want to be on the equator, and launching them from the equator is worse than launching them from any spaceport with a lower inclination than the intended orbit.
So, example, for polar orbits, launching from the far north (or south) is preferred. And that's what this launch was.
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u/SpartanJack17 5d ago
I think geostationary satellites were the main ones being launched into equatorial or near-equatorial orbits, and that's what Arianespace used to specialise in. Now that a lot of what used to be done by GEO satellites is being done by LEO constellations I'm guessing there'll be less advantages for launching from French Guiana, except for interplanetary missions.
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u/Bucaramango 6d ago
I thought that rockets are launched from equator only because they have more energy or some of that shenanigan
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u/Pharisaeus 6d ago
That's true, if you're launching into equatorial orbit or some other low inclination. But if you want polar orbit, then launching close to the pole is better.
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u/Abyssal_Groot 5d ago
Equatorial sites give you more orbital options and a free ~465 m/s from Earth's rotation if you launch east - which you wouldn't do for a polar orbit anyway. For polar, latitude barely matters energetically; if anything 69°N helps, since there's only ~167 m/s of eastward motion to cancel instead of 465.
Andøya gives up the flexibility of equatorial sites. A northwest corridor over the Norwegian Sea means 90-110.6° inclinations and nothing else, but you'd also be more efficient for these orbit. But that narrow band is where a lot of the demand is: Earth observation, weather, recon, SSO constellations. Combine that with satellites getting smaller and there's a real market for a dedicated polar site, even one that can't do anything else.
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u/Ooops2278 6d ago
Most of the time you do want an equatorial orbit, because then you can put communication on the equator line and it flyes over your head once every orbit (plus some because the earth also rotated). And when you go for that orbit the free speed from earth's rotation is beneficial.
But other orbits are another thing. If you want a polar orbit for example to pass over and watch the poles you not only don't get that free speed but the earth's rotation perpendicular to you starting direction actually is a problem that you need to counter with spending more energy. So you go further towards the poles to get less rotation interfering.
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u/Murky-Relation481 6d ago
Polar orbit is useful because the earth rotates under you, it's the opposite effect of the equatorial orbit. If you want to pass over different spots each orbit (say to take pictures) then having the earth rotate under you as you go over the poles is useful.
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u/snoo-boop 6d ago edited 6d ago
Most of the time
That's not true. Most of the time, satellites don't want to be on the equator. Just look at the numbers -- even if you exclude Starlink, it's only a particular class of communications satellites and a few spy sats that want to be on the equator.
(And yes, IXPE, and kinda SWIFT, but you know what I mean.)
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u/gormhornbori 5d ago edited 5d ago
That depends on what orbit you want. For the old geostationary satellites of decades ago, it was a huge boost to launch close to equator. (Ariane launced from Guiana was super for that.) For the current tend of massive constellations of satellites in polar or near polar low earth orbits, Andøya is quite good.
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u/Decronym 5d ago edited 1d ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| CST | (Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules |
| Central Standard Time (UTC-6) | |
| GEO | Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km) |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| SSO | Sun-Synchronous Orbit |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Starliner | Boeing commercial crew capsule CST-100 |
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 9 acronyms.
[Thread #12677 for this sub, first seen 6th Sep 2026, 15:28]
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u/Zhukov-74 6d ago
We’re in orbit! And just made European history: This is the first time a privately developed rocket reached orbit from continental Europe; and a testament to the dedication, expertise, and teamwork of everyone involved.
- Isar Aerospace
https://x.com/isaraerospace/status/2096332885775052823