Isar Aerospace reaches orbit from continental Europe

At 21:12 BST/22:12 CEST on 5 September 2026, Isar Aerospace’s 28 m Spectrum lifted off from Andøya Spaceport in Norway and reached low Earth orbit. ESA calls it the first launch to orbit from continental Europe by a European company using its own launch vehicle.

The mission carried six commercial and educational CubeSats and an experiment designed to prove new technologies in orbit. That marks a sharp change from Spectrum’s first test flight in 2025, which lasted 30 seconds, cleared the launch pad and demonstrated liftoff—but did not reach orbit.

Spectrum is a two-stage rocket, 2 m in diameter, with ten engines. Spectrum is targeting payloads of up to 1000 kg to low Earth orbit. That is the launcher’s stated target, not the mass reported for this mission.

So what changes in concrete terms? Six commercial and educational CubeSats and an experiment have reached low Earth orbit from a European launch site. ESA calls the launch another step towards a more diverse and autonomous European launch-service sector; Isar Aerospace is the first provider to reach the first milestone of the European Launcher Challenge.

The achievement is a milestone: this second launch follows ESA-backed development through the Boost! programme, which also supported the flight. The European Launcher Challenge requires participating providers to achieve an orbital launch no later than 2027; Isar Aerospace has reached that requirement’s first milestone ahead of the deadline.