Isar Aerospace: Fishing boat in exclusion zone prevented rocket launch

A Norwegian fishing boat prevented the second rocket launch of the German space company Isar Aerospace last week. The countdown was aborted. A technical problem ultimately prevented the launch of the Spectrum.

Several boats were in the safety zone when Isar Aerospace wanted to start the test, said skipper Olafur Einarsson to the Norwegian fishing newspaper Kyst og Fjord. "We should have finished a little earlier, but we had problems with the current and the rope got tangled in the water." That's why he and his crew were "an hour later than planned."

Due to the fishing vessel, the countdown was stopped and suspended for 15 minutes, Isar Aerospace announced via the microblogging service X. At 9:18 p.m., clearance was given to restart the countdown.

Increase in fuel temperature

However, the interruption led to an increase in fuel temperature in the engine. The problem could not be resolved within the shortened countdown, Isar Aerospace writes. Therefore, the launch had to be aborted. The announcement makes no mention of a new launch date.

According to the report, Einarsson disrupted a bomb drop in the fall of last year. This time, however, it was a mistake, he emphasized. "I don't know anyone who planned sabotage."

For the fisherman and his colleagues, it's about their livelihood: the exclusion zone around the launch site on the island of Andøya off the Norwegian coast extends into the fishermen's fishing grounds. "For us fishermen, this is our workplace, and they come here and want to use the same area. You could say we've got a bad neighbor," Einarsson said.

Other nations come to Andøya to launch their rockets without any agreement with the fishermen, Einarsson criticized. "Everyone has a right, but we believe we have a greater right than they do."

Launch delay in January

The second launch of the Spectrum was originally scheduled for January. However, it had to be postponed due to a defective valve. In its second mission, designated "Onward and Upward," the rocket is to carry five CubeSats and an experiment as payload. The goal of the mission is to validate the important systems of the carrier rocket under operating conditions, as the company announced at the beginning of the year. During the flight, Spectrum is to carry five CubeSats and an experiment as payload.

Isar Aerospace is a spin-off of 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 of 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 launch, 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 finished, 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)