Isar Aerospace completes first orbital launch vehicle test flight in Norway
European private aerospace startup Isar Aerospace successfully completed the first test flight of its Spectrum rocket, despite the rocket crashing to the ground 30 seconds after launch on Sunday.
Isar Aerospace, a German startup based in Munich, launched the rocket from the island of Andøya in northern Norway. The rocket took off from the platform at 12:30 pm and flew for about 30 seconds before flipping over and falling back to the ground, causing a powerful explosion.
The Spectrum is a 28 metre-long, two-stage rocket specifically designed to place small and medium-sized satellites into orbit.
This marks the first attempt to launch a satellite rocket from continental Europe."Our first test flight met all our expectations and was a great success," said Daniel Metzler, CEO and co-founder of Isar, in a press release. "We had a clean takeoff, 30 seconds of flight, and we were also able to validate our Flight Termination System."
The launch was subject to various factors, including weather and safety conditions, and Sunday's takeoff followed a week of adverse conditions that delayed the test last Monday and Saturday due to the weather.
The company had widely ruled out the possibility of the rocket reaching orbit on its first full flight, stating that it would consider a 30-second flight a success.
Isar Aerospace aims to gather as much data and experience as possible during the first integrated test of all systems on its in-house developed launch vehicle.
Isar Aerospace is separate from the European Space Agency (ESA), which is funded by its 23 member states.
The ESA has been launching rockets and satellites into orbit for years, but primarily from French Guiana and Cape Canaveral in Florida. This latest attempt therefore marked the first attempt to launch a satellite rocket from within Europe.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
4 hours ago
- CNBC
France is betting Eutelsat can become Europe's answer to Starlink — but experts aren't convinced
For years, France's Eutelsat has been trying to build a European alternative to Elon Musk's Starlink satellite broadband service. The company merged with British satellite venture OneWeb in 2023, consolidating the region's satellite communications industry in an effort to catch up to Starlink, which is owned by SpaceX. Last week, the French state led a 1.35-billion-euro ($1.58 billion) investment in Eutelsat, making it the company's biggest shareholder with a roughly 30% stake. Europe largely lags behind the U.S. in the global space race. Starlink's constellation of over 7,000 satellites dwarfs Eutelsat's. Meanwhile, Europe's launch capabilities are more limited than the U.S. The region still relies heavily on America for certain launch services, which is a market dominated by SpaceX. Eutelsat currently has a market capitalization of 1.6 billion euros, much lower than estimates for Starlink owner SpaceX's value, which was pegged at $350 billion in a secondary share sale last year. In 2020, analysts at Morgan Stanley said that they see Starlink growing to $80.9 billion in their "base case valuation" for the firm. Luke Kehoe, industry analyst at network monitoring firm Ookla, said France's investment in Eutelsat shows the country "is now treating Eutelsat less like a commercial telco and more like a dual-use critical-infrastructure provider" and a "strategic asset" in the European Union's push for technological sovereignty. However, building a European competitor to Starlink will be no mean feat. Communications industry experts tell CNBC that, while Eutelsat could boost Europe's efforts to create a sovereign satellite internet provider, challenging its U.S. rival Starlink would require a significant increase in investments in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. Eutelsat's OneWeb arm operates a total of 650 LEO satellites, which is less than a tenth of Starlink's 7,600-strong global satellite constellation. "To offer greater capacity and coverage, [Eutelsat] needs to increase the number of satellites in space, a task made more difficult due to the fact that many of OneWeb's satellites are nearing the end of their lifespan and will need to be first replaced before growing the constellation's size," Joe Gardiner, research analyst at market research firm CCS Insight, told CNBC via email. Ookla's Kehoe echoed this view. "Eutelsat's chances of achieving parity with Starlink in the mass-market satellite broadband segment within the next five years remain limited, given SpaceX's unmatched global scale in LEO infrastructure," he said. "Even with the latest injection of capital from the French state, Eutelsat continues to lag behind Starlink in several key areas, including capital, manufacturing throughput, launch access, spectrum and user terminals." Nevertheless, he thinks the company is "well positioned to succeed in European-sovereign, security-sensitive and enterprise segments that prioritise jurisdictional control and sovereignty over raw constellation capacity." The enterprise segment refers to the market for corporate space clients. That's certainly the hope. France's Emmanuel Macron has urged Europe to ramp up its investment in space, saying last week that "space has in some way become a gauge of international power." When Eutelsat announced its investment from France last week, the firm stressed its role as "the only European operator with a fully operational LEO network" as well as the "strategic role of the LEO constellation in France's model for sovereign defense and space communications." Earlier this year, Eutelsat was rumoured to be in the running to replace Starlink in Ukraine. For years, Starlink has offered Ukraine's military its satellite internet services to assist with the war effort amid Russia's ongoing between the U.S. and Ukraine soured following the election of President Donald Trump and reports surfaced that U.S. negotiators had raised the possibility of cutting Ukraine's access to Starlink. Germany set up 1,000 Eutelsat terminals in Ukraine in April with the aim of providing an alternative — rather than a replacement — for Starlink's 50,000 terminals in the war-torn country. Since then, U.S.-Ukraine tensions have somewhat cooled, and Starlink remains the primary satellite broadband provider to the Ukrainian military. Eutelsat's former CEO Eva Berneke has herself admitted that the company cannot yet match Starlink's scale. "If we were to take over the entire connectivity capacity for Ukraine and all the citizens — we wouldn't be able to do that. Let's just be very honest," she said in an April interview with Politico. Berneke was replaced as CEO in May by Jean-Francois-Fallacher, a former executive of French telecoms giant Orange. Meanwhile, even though Eutelsat has been ramping up investments in LEO satellite with its OneWeb unit, experts say its technical architectures and orbital designs are ultimately different from Starlink's. "The OneWeb constellation currently uses a bent-pipe architecture, which is not as capable as Starlink satellites; therefore, OneWeb will also need to invest in second-generation satellites," he added. The French firm's use cases also differ to Starlink's. Eutelsat operates a constellation of geostationary orbit (GEO) as well as LEO satellites. GEO satellites orbit the earth at a much higher altitude than their LEO equivalents and can typically cover more land with fewer satellites. "Eutelsat's higher altitude satellites are leveraged for specialized use cases, such as polar coverage for companies and research facilities in remote regions like Greenland and Alaska," said Joe Vaccaro, vice president and general manager at Cisco's ThousandEyes network intelligence unit. Looking ahead, Eutelsat said it plans to "build upon its operation improvements" with a "differentiated go-to-market model" and "strong European anchoring." It also noted that the U.K. government could also increase its investment in Eutelsat "in due course."
New York Post
5 hours ago
- New York Post
Rare Jupiter-sized planet discovered 3,200 light-years away using Einstein's space-time warping method
Astronomers used a method once theorized by Albert Einstein to find a mysterious and rare planet on the edge of our galaxy. The planet, AT2021uey b, is a Jupiter-sized gas giant located about 3,200 light-years from Earth in the galactic bulge. It takes AT2021uey b 4,170 days to orbit its dwarf star, according to a study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Advertisement According to Live Scence, AT2021uey b's shadow was first spotted in 2021 in data taken by the European Space Agency's Gaia telescope. It took the astronomers multiple check-ins to confirm the details of the planet. The astronomers discovered the planet using microlensing, a method used only three times previously, according to the study. Microlensing, which is based on Einstein's theory of relativity, relies on massive objects moving through the galaxy to warp the fabric of the universe, called space-time. Advertisement 3 An artist's illustration of the Gaia space telescope, which first spotted the microlensing event in 2021. ESA/ATG medialab / SWNS Dr. Marius Maskoliunas, astronomer at Vilnius University and co-author of the study, discussed in a statement posted in just how much work goes into using this method. 'This kind of work requires a lot of expertise, patience and, frankly, a bit of luck. You have to wait for a long time for the source star and the lensing object to align and then check an enormous amount of data,' Maskoliunas said in the statement. 'Ninety percent of observed stars pulsate for various other reasons, and only a minority of cases show the microlensing effect.' 3 A visualization of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. NASA/ESA et al. / SWNS Advertisement According to the study, microlensing occurs when a massive celestial body briefly positions itself directly in front of an even more distant star. As the planet settles in front of the star during its journey, the light begins to curve around the planet, magnifying the light of the star. According to the study, this temporary magnified light is what astronomers are searching for. Maskoliunas gave an example of how to imagine how microlensing works. 3 An illustration depicts NASA's Juno spacecraft in orbit above Jupiter. NASA/JPL-Caltech / SWNS Advertisement 'What fascinates me about this method is that it can detect those invisible bodies. Imagine a bird flying past you. You don't see the bird itself and don't know what color it is — only its shadow,' Maskoliunas said in the statement. 'But from it, you can, with some level of probability, determine whether it was a sparrow or a swan and at what distance from us. It's an incredibly intriguing process.' According to Live Science, there have been nearly 6,000 planets discovered since 1992 using two other more common practices known as transmit photometry and radial velocity. These more common practices will detect planets through host stars becoming dimmer due to said planets. They will also detect the wobble of the planets' gravitational pulls that occur.
Business Insider
10 hours ago
- Business Insider
"We can turn Africa into a 'heaven' in the next five years" — Dangote
Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, has urged Africans to adopt bold thinking and a long-term mindset, asserting that the continent could be transformed into a 'heaven' within just five years. Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest man, advocates for bold thinking and long-term vision to transform the continent within five years. Dangote emphasized that Africans must believe in their potential to make the continent productive and growth-focused. He has spearheaded major investments, including the $20 billion Dangote Refinery in Lagos, the world's largest single-train oil refinery. Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, has urged Africans to adopt bold thinking and a long-term mindset, asserting that the continent could be transformed into a 'heaven' within just five years. He made the remarks on Friday while speaking at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). 'We can actually turn Africa into a heaven in the next five years. It doesn't take time. Like I keep saying: You need to think big, and then you grow big,' Dangote stated. 'We African champions should know that we are the only people who can make Africa great. Nobody will do that for us. So, as such, we need to make sure that we concentrate. We believe in our own continent. The job of people like us is not about amassing wealth. It's about creating wealth," he said. Africa's foremost industrialist has long championed investments in the continent's development. His commitment recently drew praise from the Nigerian government for prioritizing national advancement over the allure of tech windfalls. Rather than betting on global giants like Amazon, Microsoft, or Google, investments that could have boosted his net worth to $120 billion, Dangote chose instead to build the world's largest single-train oil refinery in Lagos. Reshaping Africa's energy future Valued at $20 billion, the Dangote Refinery is now Africa's biggest and a transformative force in the region's energy sector. Although delayed for several years, the refinery officially began production of diesel, naphtha, and jet fuel in January last year, followed by petrol production in September. The massive facility surpasses the capacity of Europe's 10 largest refineries. According to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Dangote's oil push in Nigeria is already starting to disrupt the European oil market. Economists suggest that the Dangote refinery could potentially end the long-standing gasoline trade from Europe to Africa, which is valued at $17 billion annually. Earlier this year, Aliko Dangote projected that his conglomerate is on track to generate $30 billion in total revenue next year, despite growing concerns among global businesses about the potential impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's trade tariffs.
