Isar’s first orbital rocket crashes into sea – CEO calls it a 'great success'
- Reference: 1743504309
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/04/01/failure_in_new_space/
- Source link:
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Lofoten Islands, Norway - The entrance to Andøya Space Center area is adorned with a dummy of a rocket (click to enlarge) – Pic: Uhryn Larysa / Shutterstock.com
The rocket in question was Isar Aerospace's Spectrum, the first test launch of which lifted off from the Andøya Spaceport, an island off Norway's northern coast, on March 30 at 1130 UTC. The launch was billed as the first orbital attempt by a commercial company based in continental Europe, and it had suffered multiple delays due to weather throughout the preceding week.
The two-stage Spectrum will be able to carry a payload of up to 1,000 kg to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and its arrival has become increasingly crucial for European operators in light of recent uncertainty surrounding EU-US relations.
Eutelsat in talks with Euro leaders as they mull Starlink replacement in Ukraine [2]READ MORE
Unfortunately, the first launch failed. As the saying goes, "space is hard."
After approximately 20 seconds, the rocket appeared to lose attitude control and began to tumble mid-flight. Video footage suggests the rocket flipped, its engines shut down, and it plummeted into the sea near the launchpad, exploding on impact.
The precise cause of the anomaly hasn't been confirmed, though the vehicle's Flight Termination System - the standard kill switch for when rockets go rogue - was triggered as designed.
Despite the failure, Isar Aerospace CEO and co-founder Daniel Metzler [3]said , "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."
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In a later briefing with reporters following the launch, the rocket biz continued to insist the launch was a success. The launchpad was intact, plenty of data was gathered, and the Flight Termination System did its job. So, all good then?
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Not really. A trend is starting to be seen in the commercial rocket world where a failure is declared a success. Isar is in good company – SpaceX boss Elon Musk regularly insists Starship explosions are valuable [7]learning experiences, even when those "successes" turn into high-altitude confetti.
If the intent of Isar Aerospace's Spectrum test flight was to clear the launchpad, shut itself down mid-air, and then have the vehicle plummet into a nearby body of water, then the mission was an unqualified success.
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The rocket, to be clear, is meant to reach orbit and is not a submersible. The Reg wonders if Isar Aerospace would still be claiming "success" had Spectrum crashed back onto the launchpad instead.
[9]ISS resupply and trash pickup craft postponed indefinitely after Cygnus container crunch
[10]Jeff Bezos can now taunt Elon Musk: I'm building a moon rover for NASA, when can Tesla do that?
[11]US Space Force warns Chinese satellites are 'dogfighting' in space
[12]DARPA skips the lab, will head to orbit to test space manufacturing tech
Rockets are undoubtedly difficult. The fuel tends to be explosive, and innumerable parts must work together correctly in order to ensure a successful mission. The achievement of getting something off the launchpad is not to be underestimated, and congratulations are in order.
However, branding a mission that ended in a fireball over the sea as "a great success" is an ambitious spin.
Isar Aerospace managed to get its rocket off the launchpad on the first try, gathered some telemetry, and didn't do any serious damage to the infrastructure when the flight was terminated after the rocket went out of control. That's good. However it was not a success. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/04/01/shutterstock_1250211202.jpg
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/07/eutelsat_starlink_ukraine/
[3] https://x.com/isaraerospace/status/1906308114900468041
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z-wNn2bFpHz7u5rqzY9MdwAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z-wNn2bFpHz7u5rqzY9MdwAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z-wNn2bFpHz7u5rqzY9MdwAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1649050306943266819
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z-wNn2bFpHz7u5rqzY9MdwAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/27/cygnus_freighter_damaged/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/26/firefly_aerospac_honeybee_rover/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/20/us_space_force_warns_chinese/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/12/darpa_decides_to_skip_the/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
We are go for launch.
Ha!
What ever Musk can do Daniel Metzler can do better and quicker.
How's that for moving fast and breaking things?
Objectives?
Mission success can only be measured against mission objectives. if these were published in advance and achieved, it's a success.
Icon: RUD
Have you watched "The Right Stuff" recently?
NASA had plenty of rapid unplanned disassemblies in the early days. In the movie "The Right Stuff", those clips of rockets exploding just seconds after lift-off are real NASA archive footage. The courage of the Mercury astronauts, especially Alan Shepard, cannot be overstated. Those guys watched rockets explode, then went ahead and sat atop one anyway.
Re: Have you watched "The Right Stuff" recently?
I think they were just having fun watching things go bang! It has been claimed that they were making the atlas rockets so fast that when one went kaboom there would be a backlog of already built rockets likely with the very same issue waiting to launch and they just kept sending them up.
'Yes, it failed in the same way as the last 2, well now we have definitive proof of the fault'.
Those were very different times. And I'm very glad that we didn't have to rely on the Thor missiles for defence.
Re: Have you watched "The Right Stuff" recently?
I don't have to watch the movie.
I was around for the real thing -- admittedly as a youngish kid -- I was barely 9 when Sputnik 1 1 flew and freaked everyone out -- and, yeah, a lot of things exploded on the pad.
And, yes, I remember nascent NASA saying that even in failure we learned things, so this is nothing new.
What they didn't do was make it into a joke.
It was serious business by serious people 2 . My partner's late father was an electrical engieer who designed components which flew on Apollo (in the Command Module, if I have the story correct) and every mission there was some intense nail-biting around their house from liftoff to splashdown.
RUD , my fat fanny.
___________________
1 [1]Sputnik 1
2 [2]Even if some of them were serious ex-Nazis
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun#Nazi_Party_membership
Rocket science is relatively easy. Rocket engineering is HARD. Rocket plumbing is extremely so.
A good rocket will, by design, operate all systems and components to the very limit of their capability. At these limits, mathematical modelling can only get you a certain amount of the way. Hardware testing becomes unavoidable. Failures will be unavoidable until you have enough data to verify or tweak your models. Padding is added to items that, were designed too marginally. Items that appear to have too large margins can be noted for future addition of lightness.
(One of my engineering profs once noted (tongue in cheek) that if you go to an aircraft crash site and find a component that is bigger than 30 cm, then this part was over engineered and in need for optimisation)
The alternative is the NASA-SSL-approach, where years and years are wasted optimizing and veryfying all mathematical models. And how are these models tested? By putting individual components into a lab and testing them. ..But is the lab test correct? Can the lab recreate the exact flight conditions? Sometimes the most sensible solution is to light the candle can collect as much data as is physically possible.
ISA (and SpaceX) is not NEW space. This is OLD space. Look into how many rockets exploded up to the point where Apollo could head for the moon. What it is not, is MIDDLE AGED space with a bit too much flab around the middle and a sneaking suspicion about it's own mortality.
EL REG likes to be snarky, but it is better if the snarkiness is applied correctly to things that the EL Reg hack understands.
As for now, Europe needs US-free space access, and having more options than Arianespace is a GOOD thing, even if getting there may kill some poor innocent codfish.
Edit: Würstfinger
'A good rocket will, by design, operate all systems and components to the very limit of their capability' – you might want to test to that level, but normal running at 'the very limit of their capability' is a recipe for repeated catastrophe.
It's important to know where the limits are, so that a sensible margin can be given to provide as near 100% reliability in your systems as physics and manufacturing processes allow.
And then there is the fact that human beings inevitably occasionally stuff up.
A crane is built with a safety factor of 10. The crane is expected to continue to operate safely even if maintenance is lacking.
An aircraft is built with a safety factor of 1.5. The aircraft is expected to be operated regularily, but by professionals and with constantz maintenance.
A rocket suffers under the rocket equation. m.payload/m.structure is very low.
I am not sure what the safety factor for a rocket is. I expect it to vary by mission/ hazard level. However, a rocket designed to 1.5 is, in theory lifting 50% too much structure.
20 seconds
It was failing well before then - you can see the thrust vectoring starting to move the exhaust stream well before that. Round about when the FTS shut down the engines, it is also obvious that a significant roll had built up.
Failure could be something as simple as a sensor being wired back-to-front, as that would lead to an undamped oscillation along the lines of what appeared to happen. Will have to wait for an investigation to find out, of course.
Re: 20 seconds
When i saw the video I guessed it was a sensor mounted backwards (or a programming error with a plus sign instead of a minus sign).
Optimisaton for aerospace vehicles
From the Wright brothers on the prime rule of aerospace design has been "Simplicate and add lightness", but if you're interested in finding out just how good the Wright brothers' development methods were, I'd recommend getting hold of a copy of Harry Combs book "Kill Devil Hill". Its the only book about them to be written by a man who has himself designed, developed, manufactured and flown aircraft.
Quite apart from being a good author, Harry Combs knew what he was talking about: he was founder of Combs Aviation and president of Gates Learjet Corporation. He was also a pioneering soaring pilot who "lived and breathed the Golden and Jet Ages of aviation." and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1996. He was also pioneering soaring pilot who "lived and breathed the Golden and Jet Ages of aviation". He was also inducted into the US National Aviation Hall of Fame.
As Tom Lehrer said/sang
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department, " says Wernher von Braun
"...and even got to validate our Flight Termination System!"
Does he have eternal optimist listed on his CV?
He founded a private venture rocket company. He cannot be anything but an optimist.
Q: What is the fastest way to make a small fortune in the aerospace industry?
A: You start with a large one!
Spectrum rocket destroyed
Mysteron involvement suspected, send for Captain Scarlet!
Miura 1
Considering the Miura 1 was launched from a Spanish launch site in Huelva in 2023 (and got nearly 50 km up), how can the launch of the Spectrum be the first attempt from continental Europe?
[1]Wikipedia: Miura 1
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miura_1
Re: Miura 1
From the liked Wikipedia article, first sentence:
"Miura 1 (previously called Arion 1 is a >>>suborbital<<< recoverable launch vehicle"
The Spectrum is designed for orbital insertions.
On a side note: Andöya has been launching Nike-Orion sub-orbital sounding rockets for many decades
Re: Miura 1
Sounding rockets are fairly normal. There are many different ones being launched all over the world, nobody finds them interesting.
UK launched 441 Skylark sounding rockets, some to over 500km altitude. Many of these launches were from British sites, until about 2005 after the later launches were taken over by commercial organisations.
"Director Prof Boyd (later Sir Robert Boyd) memorably said: 'If we are not suffering failures, we are not working at the edge, and if we are not working at the edge, we shouldn't be here'."
Re: Miura 1
I am aware that sounding rockets are fairly normal. What I tried to convey, was that for all intents and purposes, the spanish launch was just another sounding rocket.
they didn't show the crash, so they considered it a failure worth hiding.
They said beforehand that they didn't plan to reach orbit. The launch was livestreamed. The crash is all over YouTube. You don't know what you're talking about.
Cutting the livestream before impact may have been a precaution just in case someone was about to get injured or killed.
This would give them the option of handing over all footage to the investigating authorities if this was the case, or publish with a delay if all was well.
Livestreaming someone's death would result in serious backlash, and this was most likely discussed and decided upon beforehand.
I think the snark is a little harsh for an actual first launch. Simply getting nine engines lit and 30 seconds into flight is a great achievement - validating the launch structure and whatever mitigations have been designed against harmonic feedback and not having the thing tear itself apart on the pad.
Not going to orbit on your very first launch is no great disgrace.
I do appreciate the sentiment though. I was quite forgiving of SpaceX's early Starship failures - lighting up 33 engines (and bringing the first operational full-flow engine to service) - is quite something, the belly flop is mad, whilst things like hot-staging are new to SpaceX, so a few failures are nothing amiss.
However, repeatedly turning the Starship upper-stage into confetti after multiple successful sub-orbital tests now starts to look like "rush job" rather than "rapid iteration".
I guess it is a "success" if the company can go on to try again. VC funds are very flaky and more so in the current environment.
Isar seems to have more in the build process which marks them a good step ahead of the now-defunct examples such as Virgin Orbital or ABL Space (the latter was supposed to provide the UK first launch with Lockheed Martin as "Pathfinder", with lots of UK gov money, and now no obvious outcome)