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U.S.|Orbital Rocket Crashes After First Launch From Continental Europe
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/orbital-rocket-crash-europe.html
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The rocket, developed by Isar Aerospace, lifted off from Norway’s Andøya Space Center and crashed about 30 seconds later. The test flight was part of efforts to make Europe a center for private satellite launches.
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March 30, 2025Updated 12:20 p.m. ET
The engine shuddered to life around half past noon local time on Sunday, and with a guttural roar, the 92-foot-tall Spectrum rocket lifted slowly away from its launch tower, marking the first liftoff of its kind on the European continent.
The rocket, launched by Isar Aerospace from within the Arctic Circle at a spaceport on the icy Norwegian island of Andøya, was the first orbital flight outside of Russia to leave continental Europe. About 30 seconds after the rocket cleared the launchpad, it pitched to the side and plummeted back to earth.
But Daniel Metzler, the chief executive of Isar Aerospace, was upbeat. He said in a statement that the test flight had “met all our expectations, achieving a great success,” despite the crash.
“We had a clean liftoff, 30 seconds of flight and even got to validate our Flight Termination System,” Mr. Metzler said. The rocket fell directly into the sea, the launchpad was not damaged, and no one was harmed when the spacecraft crashed, he added.
The Andøya Spaceport could not immediately be reached for comment. Earlier, it had posted on social media saying that “crisis management” had been activated following the crash, and that it was collaborating with the emergency services and Isar Aerospace.
The test flight was seven years in the making for Isar Aerospace, a German-based company founded in 2018 with a mission to make satellite launches more accessible from Europe. European companies have been pushing ahead in space technology and research, exploring the potential of the space sector for defense, security and geopolitics.
