Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

[jumploops]

As a software engineer, this might sound like a failure, but launching plus 30s of flight time means a lot of things went right.

If you’re curious about commercial launch vehicles, there’s a decent documentary about the challenges these aerospace startups face called Wild Wild Space[0].

Just getting the thing off the ground is a huge milestone. I wish them the best in future launches.

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Space

[senko]

The book the show is based on / related to, When heavens went on sale (by Ashlee Vance) is well worth a read, as are Liftoff and Reentry (by Eric Berger).

[ivan_gammel]

Looks like it was completely successful. They willingly terminated the launch after achieving mission goals.

[mertbio]

> CEO and Co-founder Daniel Metzler: “Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great success. We had a clean liftoff, 30 seconds of flight and even got to validate our Flight Termination System. With this result, we feel confident to approach our second flight.”

See: https://isaraerospace.com/newsroom-first-test-flight

[michaeljx]

Does the flight termination system consist of the rocket free-falling into the ground resulting in a fiery explosion?

[ck2]

> "that explosion wasn't a failure, it was an experiment rich with data"

   - Neil deGrasse Tyson

[IshKebab]

Certainly a glass half full way of looking at it.

[perihelions]

Launch video with timestamp,

https://youtu.be/bykfQ3J4NNc?t=2049

edit: And different camera angles here,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlAgenP2RxM

https://tv.vg.no/nyheter/se-den-historiske-rakettoppskytning...

[Mistletoe]

Why does the first video just cut to nothing for the most exciting part, the fall?

[belter]

Gorgeous landscape.

[tectonic]

The first orbital launch attempt from continental Europe, and the first of Europe’s batch of newspace commercial launch startups. I hope they figure out what happened and iterate quickly!

[zamadatix]

I think that should be "first commercial orbital launch attempt from continental Europe".

Commercial is required to exclude launches from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, orbital is required to exclude the Miura 1 attempt, Europe is required for obvious reasons & continental is required to exclude the LauncherOne attempt, and attempt is required for obvious reasons.

[iSnow]

Also the biggest German rocket since V2.

[pmontra]

Days ago I read an interview in which somebody from Isar said that they would be happy to get 30 seconds of flight time. They would learn a lot from the data. It's more or less what happened.

[shafyy]

Oh boy, this launch looks so cool with the all the ice and snowy rocks in the background

[intrasight]

For sure, the coolest launch setting there has been.

[Gravityloss]

This is excellent. I didn't realize earlier they were going to fly so soon already. Just now fixes and more flights. I hope the press, voters or investors don't treat the crash as a reason to cut off funding.

[3ple_alpha]

Too bad all European spaceports seem to be so awkwardly placed for the purpose of spectating launches. Main one in one of the most remote areas of jungle in the world, there's one in Sweden (been focusing on suborbital launches) far to the north where only moose live, now this. Americans are really lucky in that regard.

[simongray]

If someone built a space port in the Canary Islands that would actually be at a similar latitude to Cape Canaveral, though the latitude of French Guiana is hard to beat (and the Canary Islands are technically part of Africa, not Europe).

[simongray]

This video contains visits to and interviews with both Isar and another European startup, RFA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRFnGnJzRJQ

I found it quite interesting. They are taking two very different approaches.

[nw05678]

I would love to invest in this.

[panick21_]

Why? Rocket companies are a horrible investment and almost all of them fail. The small rocket market is tiny, and requires huge investment. Pretty much all companies have given up on that market completely and are moving to bigger rockets.

RocketLab is still flying electron, but they never produced much profit from it and are themselves moving to a bigger rocket.

[toni]

Launching a rocket from Earth surface looks like such a complex challenge not completely solved, and companies consider a 30-seconds journey a great success.

I have sincerely no intention to trivialize this, but would we ever see rockets launched from Moon or low Earth orbit? It seems so inefficient to launch like how we do now.

[kensai]

Excellent attempt. The more, the merrier!

[randomNumber7]

It also is more environmentally friendly than rockets from other states.

[apples_oranges]

Is this rocket „dual use“?

[perihelions]

If your enemy is your employer and their launchpad infrastructure—yes!

Less jokingly: liquid-fueled rockets aren't very practical weapons, especially ones with cryogenic fuels like liquid oxygen. I highly recommend Clark's Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants for a history of the space and missile races, as understood from the point-of-view of a propellant chemist who worked in them. There's an amazing amount of lost art and lore from the early Cold-war space era, that's no longer relevant in the modern world, except for its sheer entertainment value.

[panick21_]

All rockets are "dual use" in theory. Lots of the technology, such as guidance and so on, is the same. But this rocket is about as far on the 'launch sats to orbit' side as you can build a rocket.