Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket made history today (Sept. 5), becoming the first vehicle ever to reach orbit from European soil.
*first vehicle to reach orbit from
EUEEA soil.Did it land in London?
“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department!” says Wernher von Braun.
No, we’ve had a change in management since the last time.
Great I was not a big fan of the previous administration
Made me laugh 😅
I guess it should be read as “continental Europe”. Europe has a major launching platform in French Guiana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre
P.S.: It’s advantageous to be close to the Equator like French Guiana to benefit from a faster rotational speed of Earth’s surface for the rocket launch.
Not relevant for polar orbits
Not when you want to go into a polar orbit. That is flying over the earths poles and have the earth spin under the orbit. That allows satellites to take photos or use other sensors over every part of the planet. However to do that you need to have as little spin as possible hence being close to the poles is a good idea.
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Genuine question. What is the difference of this sending a “vehicle” to orbit vs the satellites sent from Esrange in Kiruna northern Sweden?
Never launched a satellite from there
Well done, congratulations! 🎉👍🇪🇺🇩🇪
I thought there were launches from Azores that reached orbit
Not yet, but planned.
But the launchpad on Santa Maria island isn’t in continental Europe, and technically that island specifically is on the African tectonic plate.
Ze Germans are again feared rocketeers!
The rocket is small, the payload is miniscule, the orbit was a polar one, not the more economically feasible equatorial orbit. If this had launched from Florida, Baikounour, or China, nobody would give a shit.
That being said, it took a lot to get to this point, and this is really a big step for European security and independence, and deserves recognition and celebration. I believe this will go down in history as a first small step towards something greater for Europe.
(There are also some advantages to polar orbits, such as for earth observation and telecommunications satellites.)
You are underestimating the importance of polar or SSO. Equatorial orbit is used for transfer to GEO and interplanetary missions, but SSO is used for earth observation, military reconnaissance, and the oh so popular LEO telecom constellations. All these topics are very important for the space industry currently.
E: Also, SpaceX seems to be phasing out its Rideshare Programme, on which a lot of micro satellites were relying. If they do, there will be a real vacuum in terms of launch and people will really want additional launchers to the occasional Arianespace launch, and some price competition.
not the more economically feasible equatorial orbit
You somehow manage to make that sound like polar orbits are a minor thing and equatorial orbits are superior and harder to reach when it’s the opposite. Equatorial in earth’s rotational direction is the by far easiest one. That’s the default because every other orbit is a lot harder in comparison.
Yes and no. For polar orbit you can’t get advantage of Earth’s rotation so you will need more energy. However in order to launch into a perfectly equatorial orbit you need to correct the inclination of the orbit to bring it to zero which takes a lot of energy (unless you launch from equator which Europe can do because of French Guiana). For polar orbits the location of the launch site doesn’t matter, you just wait for specific time of day and launch straight at north/south.
For polar orbits the location of the launch site doesn’t matter
It does. The rotation perpendicular to your orbit is a problem. For that reason they go further north (or theoretically south) for polar orbits.
Yeah I guess it might have come across like that.
What I meant is that launching stuff into space is extremely expensive, so not having the benefit of the Earth’s rotation, as is the case with equatorial launches, is a really bad thing. Polar orbits are more difficult, and more expensive. This is why we usually launch European rockets from French Guiana.
Having the option to launch from European soil is extremely important to our security though. But if you want to compete economically with SpaceX, China, and Russia, you’re going to go need to launch from the equator.
Saying that, as a Norwegian myself I am however incredibly happy with the investments made to Andøya, but I doubt it will ever become a European Cape Canaveral.
It is also the first successful launch of this launch system. That is not happening that often.
Private Rocket might be up for promotion after this.
But not reusable isn’t it? Shouldn’t modern rockets be reusable?
Can’t do the second step after the first one, I guess.
Spanish company PLD Space is working on recoverable and reusable rockets. They had a successful launch in 2023 but it was suborbital. They are working on a low orbit rocket now: https://www.pldspace.com/en/news/pld-space-successfully-completes-first-private-space-rocket-launch-in-europe.html
They launched from Huelva so it was the first launch of a private rocket from continental Europe (but, again, suborbital).
I was thinking the same. It’s good for what it is, but especially for smallish rockets reusability is going to be key if we want any use out of them beyond occasional military satellites.
Kazakhstan?
It was launched from Norway.
No I know, I meant that Kazakhstan launches rockets and is partially in Europe, I was surprised to read “first vehicle ever to reach orbit from European soil”
But someone pointed out Baikonur is in Asia, while another comment pointed out Russia does have a space station in Europe anyway, so it’s still not the first.
Parts of Kazakhstan are in Europe, but the region where Baikonur is, is generally considered as being a part of Asia
Russian soil.
The rocket was launched from Andøya which is on the west coast of Norway, hundreds of kilometers from the Russian border.
The part of Kazakhstan where there is a Cosmodrome (Baikonur) is a Russian enclave. So that part of Kazakhstan is Russian soil.
🎆🎇🎉🎊✨🚀
