Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket made history today (Sept. 5), becoming the first vehicle ever to reach orbit from European soil.
Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket made history today (Sept. 5), becoming the first vehicle ever to reach orbit from European soil.
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.
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.
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.