Isar Aerospace becomes first commercial entity to launch rocket into orbit from continental Europe

For decades, if a European satellite needed a ride to orbit, it either hitched a lift on an American, Russian, or Chinese rocket, or waited for Arianespace’s infrastructure to free up. On September 5, 2026, that calculus changed. Isar Aerospace, a Munich-based startup founded by three university students in 2018, launched its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway and reached orbit in roughly seven minutes, making it the first commercial company to put a rocket into orbit from European soil. The launch lifted off at 22:12 local time and successfully deployed five CubeSats selected through a German Space Agency competition, along with one ESA-linked technology experiment. A second-attempt success built on one very expensive lesson Isar’s first Spectrum flight, in March 2025, ended roughly 30 seconds after liftoff. The company went back to the drawing board, ran extensive testing and development work, and returned to the pad roughly 18 months later with a significantly more mature vehicle. Spectrum stands 28 meters tall with a diameter of about 2 meters. Its first stage runs on nine Aquila engines, the second stage on one, and both stages burn a combination of propa...