German Private Rocket Makes History, Reaches Orbit From European Soil

A German aerospace company, Isar Aerospace, has made history after its Spectrum rocket successfully reached orbit from European soil for the first time.

The two-stage rocket lifted off from the Andøya Space Center in northern Norway at 4:12 p.m. EDT (8:12 p.m. GMT) on Saturday, September 5, 2026, and reached an elliptical orbit around Earth approximately seven minutes later.

The achievement marks the first time a rocket has successfully reached orbit from Western European soil, a milestone described by Isar Aerospace engineers as a major breakthrough for the company and Europe’s growing private space industry.

“This is right now making history — making history for Spectrum, making history for Isar, making history for Europe,” Spectrum Chief Engineer Nikolaos Perakis said during the launch webcast.

The mission, dubbed “Onward and Upward,” was Spectrum’s second orbital attempt. Its maiden flight in March 2025 ended less than a minute after liftoff following an anomaly involving a vent valve and loss of attitude control.

Isar Aerospace subsequently conducted a comprehensive investigation and introduced corrective measures. The company’s second launch attempt was then delayed several times by technical issues, bad weather, a boat entering the launch exclusion zone and other vehicle-related concerns.

Despite the setbacks, Spectrum finally achieved its historic milestone on Saturday.

Unlike its failed maiden flight, the latest mission carried payloads, including five CubeSats and a scientific experiment. The rocket’s upper stage is expected to perform a circularisation manoeuvre before deploying the payloads, after which Isar will be able to assess the mission’s full success.

Spectrum is designed to carry up to about 1,000 kilogrammes of payload into low Earth orbit. Isar Aerospace hopes to eventually turn the rocket into a workhorse launcher for small and medium-sized satellites, with its manufacturing facility near Munich designed to produce more than 30 rockets annually.

“Flight 2 is a big, big milestone, big success,” Perakis said. “But this is just the beginning.”

The achievement further strengthens Europe’s ambitions to develop an independent and commercially competitive launch industry, with private companies increasingly challenging traditional government-backed space programmes.