Isar Aerospace aborts second launch of Spectrum rocket

The second launch of the German space company Isar Aerospace's rocket was aborted at the last moment. The Spectrum rocket was scheduled to lift off from the Andøya Space launch site in Norway at 9:21 PM. The launch was aborted at the last minute, “during the automatic launch sequence,” Isar Aerospace announced  via the X microblogging service. The reason was a “violation of the exclusion zone by an unauthorized boat.”

It was not possible to restart the countdown because this would have exceeded the launch window. Isar Aerospace and Andøya Space are now looking for a new launch window.

Launch postponed due to a defective valve

The second launch of the Spectrum was originally scheduled for January. However, it had to be postponed due to a defective valve. On its second mission, codenamed “Onward and Upward,” the rocket is to carry five CubeSats and an experiment as payload. The goal of the mission is to validate the carrier rocket's critical systems under operating conditions, as the company announced at the beginning of the year.

Isar Aerospace is a spin-off from TU Munich and one of three German companies developing their own rockets. The others are Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), a subsidiary of satellite manufacturer OHB, and Hyimpulse Technologies, a spin-off from the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

The Spectrum flew for the first time at the end of March last year. The flight lasted only about 30 seconds. Nevertheless, the company considered it a success: “We had a clean start, 30 seconds of flight time, and were even able to validate our flight termination system,” said Daniel Metzler, CEO and one of the founders of Isar Aerospace, at the time.

The third Spectrum is largely complete, and further rockets are under construction. Isar Aerospace plans at least one more launch this year. In the future, the company from Ottobrunn near Munich wants to bring satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO).

(wpl)