The inaugural flight of Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket is scheduled to take place between 20 and 30 March 2025 from Andøya Spaceport in Norway.
On 12 March, Andøya Space, the mostly government-owned commercial entity that operates Andøya Spaceport, published a launch period notice covering 20 to 30 March. In relation to a maritime danger-area warning, the notice specifies launch windows between 12:30 and 16:30 CET throughout the 11-day period.
While the notice does not explicitly mention Isar Aerospace, as the company is currently the launch site’s sole customer, it can only refer to Isar. The company itself has yet to make a formal announcement regarding the published launch window.
In February, Isar announced that it had completed the final major milestone in the development of its two-stage Spectrum rocket with the successful test-firing of both the first and second stages. At the time, the company stated that the only remaining hurdle before its inaugural launch attempt was obtaining a launch licence from the Civil Aviation Authority of Norway (CAA Norway). While the Andøya Spaceport notice suggests this hurdle has now been cleared, no formal announcement has been made by CAA Norway.
Payloads aboard the inaugural Spectrum flight
Isar Aerospace has yet to confirm the full payload manifest for the inaugural flight of its Spectrum rocket. However, as part of its commitment to the German aerospace agency DLR, as winners of its Microlauncher Competition, the company will be carrying approximately 100 kilograms of small satellites for commercial and institutional customers.
This manifest, announced by DLR in December 2021, includes payloads from DLR’s Responsive Space Competence Center, the Technical University of Berlin, the Institute of Aerospace Engineering in Berlin, ZfT, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and the University of Maribor in collaboration with the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications.
When this payload manifest was initially announced, Spectrum was scheduled for launch in late 2022. Since then, no updates to the manifest have been published, leaving it unclear whether all the originally planned payloads will still be aboard the flight.
