Oslo, Norway (AP) – A rocket by a civilian European aerospace company that was released from Norway on Sunday and hit the sea 30 seconds later.
Despite the short test flight, ISAR Aerospace said it successfully completed its first test flight of its orbital launch vehicle by launching a spectral rocket from Andea Island in northern Norway.
The 28-meter long (92-ft) spectrum is a two-stage launch vehicle specially designed to bring medium satellites into orbit. The rocket was lifted off the pad at 12:30pm (1030 GMT) on Sunday and flew for about 30 minutes before the flight was over, ISAR said.
“This allowed the company to gather a significant amount of flight data and experience to apply it to future missions,” ISAR said in a statement. “After the flight ended with T+30 seconds, the launch vehicle fell into the sea in a controlled manner.”
Video from the launch shows the rocket taking off the pad, flying into the air, and returning to crash into the ocean in a fiery explosion.
The launch was subject to a variety of factors including weather and safety, and Sunday’s liftoff followed a week of poor conditions, including launches scrubbed on March 24th due to unfavorable winds and weather restrictions on Saturday.
“Our first test flight met all our expectations and was a huge success,” ISAR CEO and co-founder Daniel Metzler said in a statement. “We had a clean lift-off, a 30-second flight and even managed to verify the end-of-flight system.”
The company said it would almost rule out the possibility that the rocket would reach orbit on its first full flight, and would make it a successful 30-second flight. ISAR Aerospace aims to gather as much data and experience as possible in its initial integration tests of all systems of launch vehicles developed in-house.
ISAR Aerospace is separate from the European Space Agency, or ESA, funded by 23 Member States.
“You can get off the pad and you’ve already got a lot of data. I’m sure @isaraerospace will learn a lot.
ESA has put rockets and satellites into orbit for many years, mainly from French Guiana overseas in South America, and from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
