Isar Aerospace’s successful Spectrum launch from Andøya Spaceport in Norway on September 5 is best read as a significant expansion of Europe’s launch capability, because it made Spectrum the first rocket to reach orbit from Western European soil. The private German rocket company launched the vehicle on its mission, named ‘Onward and Upward’, at 4:12 p.m. EDT (2012 GMT; 10:12 p.m. local time in Norway). It reached orbit a little over seven minutes later.
The flight was Spectrum’s second and served two purposes for Isar. It was the vehicle’s qualification mission and its first flight carrying payload. Spectrum carried five cubesats and one non-deployable scientific experiment. The payloads were deployed as planned after the rocket performed a circularization burn to adjust its orbit.
“This is right now making history — making history for Spectrum, making history for Isar, making history for Europe,” Nikolaos Perakis, Spectrum chief engineer at Isar, said.
Spectrum is a two-stage, 95-foot-tall (28-meter-tall) rocket. Isar envisions it becoming a workhorse launcher for small to medium-size satellites. The company says it has the capability to produce more than 30 rockets per year at its manufacturing facility near Munich, a scale that would make reliable repeat flights central to its business model.
The September 5 launch followed a failed first Spectrum flight from Andøya in March 2025. That mission ended less than a minute after launch. Isar said the failure resulted from an unintended opening of the vent valve and a loss of attitude control at the start of the roll maneuver.
The company completed a comprehensive investigation within two months of that launch. The second flight therefore tested whether Isar could turn the findings of the inquiry into an operational vehicle that could complete its ascent, adjust its orbit and deploy payloads.
The route to the second launch also included a series of postponements. ‘Onward and Upward’ was originally supposed to launch in January, but was delayed by an issue with a pressurization valve. Multiple launch attempts in March were scrubbed because of bad weather and an intruding boat.
An April 9 attempt was scrubbed after a leak was found in a composite overwrapped pressure vessel. A June 15 launch attempt was then stood down after the company detected off-nominal behaviour in the vehicle’s fluid systems. The eventual flight on September 5 followed those checks and delays.
Isar Aerospace is a German, Bavarian company led by chief executive Daniel Metzler. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited the company’s launch site in March. The successful mission gives Isar an orbital result from its European launch base, while leaving open questions about Spectrum’s next missions, future payloads and commercial contracts.
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