Isar Aerospace places rocket into orbit from Western Europe for the first time

German space company Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket into orbit from Andøya Spaceport in Nordmela, Norway, on 5 September 2026. It marks the first time a commercial company has successfully conducted an orbital rocket launch from Western Europe.

The launch took place at approximately 22:20 CEST. On board were five CubeSats and one technology experiment, selected through the European Space Agency's (ESA) Boost! programme and the German space agency DLR's Microlauncher Competition. The mission was named "Onward and Upward".

This was Isar Aerospace's second flight of the Spectrum rocket. The first test flight, in March 2025, failed when the rocket came down after thirty seconds. The successful launch now demonstrates that the company has overcome the technical issues from that test mission.

How the Spectrum rocket is built

Spectrum is a two-stage rocket, 28 metres tall and 2 metres in diameter, powered by liquid oxygen and liquid propane. The first stage uses nine Aquila engines, each producing 75 kilonewtons of thrust. The second stage has a single vacuum-optimised Aquila engine delivering 95 kilonewtons.

The rocket is designed to carry small to medium-sized satellites of up to 1,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit, or 700 kilograms into a sun-synchronous orbit. Isar Aerospace aims to manufacture 80 percent of the rocket in-house, giving the company greater control over costs and lead times.

Isar Aerospace was founded in March 2018 by Daniel Metzler (CEO), Markus Brandl and Josef Peter Fleischmann. The company is headquartered in Ottobrunn, just outside Munich. Its workforce grew from around 300 employees in 2022 to nearly 500 in 2026.

Which satellites rode along on the mission

The five CubeSats and the experiment on board came from universities and companies across several European countries. CyBEEsat is a project from Technische Universität Berlin, TriSat-S comes from the University of Maribor in Slovenia, and FramSat-1 is from Norway's NTNU. SpaceTeamSat1 was built by students from TU Wien, while Platform 6 comes from Bulgarian satellite company EnduroSat. The experiment Let It Go, developed by company Dcubed, tested a technology for deploying space systems.

The payload was selected through the ESA Boost! programme, which gives small satellites from European parties access to commercial launches, and through the DLR Microlauncher Competition, which Isar Aerospace won in April 2021.

Funding: from seed capital to institutional investors

Isar Aerospace has raised the equivalent of approximately one billion dollars in total across multiple funding rounds. In June 2026, the company closed a Series D round of €270 million, with Molten Ventures and Island Green Capital among the new shareholders. Earlier rounds saw participation from investors including Earlybird, Airbus Ventures, Lakestar, HV Capital and Porsche SE.

In addition to private capital, Isar Aerospace received approximately €200 million from ESA in August 2026 through the European Launcher Challenge programme. In June 2025, the company had already raised €150 million via a convertible bond. Bulent Altan, former vice president at SpaceX, was also involved as an angel investor at an early stage.

Launch sites and collaborations with space organisations

Andøya Spaceport in Norway is Isar Aerospace's home base for European launches. In April 2021, the company signed a twenty-year lease for exclusive access to launch pad 1 at that location. Earlier, in July 2022, Isar Aerospace was selected as the first private company permitted to launch from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, which is operated by the French space agency CNES.

In July 2026, the company signed a ten-year agreement with Maritime Launch Services for the use of Spaceport Nova Scotia in Canada. Isar Aerospace also announced a collaboration in May 2026 with German maritime defence company TKMS, although the details of that partnership have not been fully disclosed.

What this launch means for the European space landscape

Europe has for years faced limited independent access to space, partly because Ariane 6 became operational late and Vega-C was temporarily grounded following a failed flight. Spectrum's successful orbital flight shows that commercial European rockets can reach low Earth orbit, although a single successful mission is not evidence of structural reliability.

For the growing ecosystem of European smallsat developers, access to affordable, Europe-based launch services is a practical concern. Missions such as "Onward and Upward", partly filled through ESA and DLR programmes, give universities and smaller companies concrete launch experience. Policymakers and investors across Europe, including in the Netherlands, are closely monitoring the development of the European commercial space sector, not least in the context of discussions about strategic autonomy in access to space.