Dramatic drone video captures the first orbital launch attempt of German Isar Aerospace 's rocket , which ended in a fiery crash into the icy sea about 30 seconds after liftoff .
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The German company's first Spectrum rocket lifted off on Sunday morning (March 30) from the Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway, marking the first launch into orbit from European soil.
The German missile passed the tower, but suffered a malfunction shortly after. The rocket overturned and landed in the sea near the platform, sending an orange cloud high into the clear Arctic sky, as captured in the video.
The launch pad and surrounding infrastructure appear to have escaped damage, according to Isar Aerospace. The company highlighted the positives of the Spectrum premiere, saying the 28-meter-tall rocket performed very well overall.
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“Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great performance,” said Isar Aerospace CEO and Co-Founder Daniel Metzlerin an emailed statement. “We had a clean launch, 30 seconds of flight and were able to validate our flight termination system.”
European space officials were equally optimistic
The Director General of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, said in another statement on Sunday: “A test flight is exactly that: a test to collect data, learn and improve.”
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“What Isar Aerospace has achieved today is remarkable and will have a lot of data to analyze,” he added. “I commend the teams for their progress so far and I am confident that we will soon see the next Spectrum on the launch pad ready for test flight 2.”
Source: livescience
