Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum on second test flight after video feed drops at 10 minutes

Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket for the second time on Saturday evening, lifting off from Norway’s Andøya Spaceport at 10:12 p.m. (2012 GMT), according to a livestream of the flight.

The German company’s two-stage vehicle stayed in the air long enough to move beyond the coverage range of its ground-link video feed, which cut out roughly 10 minutes after liftoff. That meant the later portion of the mission was carried out without live camera views from the rocket.

It was a clear contrast with the vehicle’s debut attempt last spring, when Spectrum crashed into the sea about 30 seconds after takeoff. Isar had planned to return to Andøya in January for this second flight, but the attempt was postponed more than once before Saturday’s window.

The mission appeared to be a test of the rocket’s integrated ascent behavior after the short first flight limited the amount of real-flight data the company could gather. Even without a final status update, the extra minutes of powered flight and trajectory data will help engineers validate models used to predict how the rocket performs through the atmosphere and at high altitude.

Isar is part of a broader European effort to create independent, privately operated access to space. The Munich-based company is developing Spectrum as a small-to-medium-class launcher intended for commercial satellite customers, a segment that today depends heavily on a small number of established launch providers.

No immediate assessment was released on whether the rocket achieved all test objectives. The flight still marked a visible step forward for a project that represents one of the most advanced private launch programs in Europe.