Isar Aerospace reaches orbit and deploys payloads on second flight

ChrisArchitect

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49580369

nolok

Congratulation and great news ! For Europe, but also the world, space access is one of those frontiers we can (and I believe will) see truly opened in my lifetime and I find that truly awesome. Interestingly there still seems to be a difference in approach between "few launch, expected to go well" in europe and "many launch as trial and error" in the US, with other countries falling somewhere in between those two limits, it's often seen as a threat here of "if we don't do more more often we won't make any progress" but ignoring the economical side (and I think it's fair, given than even with massive subsidies SpaceX is not financially viable until it feed itself through Starlink) it's been a remarkable series of years for new European vehicules launch success. Also one thing I have to point: > Europe now has sovereign access to space. I understand what is meant here, and of course said company need to push that forward, but French Guyana is full french territory, it's not even a foreign territory. It's part of the EU (known as the outermost region of the European Union), EU law applies, it's citizens are EU citizens, EU citizens from other countries can freely move and work and live there ... It's technicaly more EU than Norway. But less Europe than Norway, sure. Still, on the context of "sovereign access", I would argue both side of that coin have their attributes, and for long term sovereignty I would prefer EU territory instead of "inside-europe-Belarus" for exemple.

gagan2020

There will be some chain reaction up there in near future, in our lifetime only. Congratulation to the team. These milestones are necessary to advancement of human race as we need new planets to occupy. But, we needed clear path going forward. I am both pro to advancement but with caution kind of guy.

jimnotgym

Congratulations ISAR Edit: it should be Isar not ISAR This is a huge achievement and every person involved should be very proud. Please oblige me by not writing anything political in reply, let's just celebrate!

kevinkatzke

Amazing achievement!

tgv

This might even influence today's election in Sachsen. With a bit of luck, it could turn a few voters to a more optimistic world view.

hn9zmdcaou

The restraint here is admirable

pyrale

Their press release seems to center on: > Europe now has sovereign access to space. [...] Customers around the world now have a sovereign launch option at their disposal. They apparently try very hard to ignore Arianespace.

ronvara61

Does someone know if they are planning to do a reusable rocket?

sajithdilshan

Congrats to Isar Aerospace. If any nation in Europe that can start a new space frontier, that would be the Germans and I hope Isar would get strong support from the Bavarian state to be a neck-on-neck competitor to SpaceX.

Vishal_Max

I really like seeing new aerospace companies, and i really hope humans go interstellar by 2050

consumer451

It might interest folks to learn: > Incidentally, the early investment for Isar came from Bülent Altan, the Turkish ex-SpaceX guy who was in charge of the guidance system for Falcon-1, Falcon-9 and Dragon. [0] It turns out that Altan was an angel investor in Isar, and then co-founded VC firm Alpine Space Ventures [1] and continued to invest in Isar, among other space ventures in Europe. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49583528 [1] https://alpinespace.vc/

morkalork

What the fuck is wrong with Americans? There's so many ignorant, racist, and all around shit takes in this thread.

dzonga

congrats - this is massive. created in 2018 and already delivering payloads to space in 2026 - less than 10 years.

psadri

For anyone interested in private space flight: Wild Wild Space documentary. Also a commentary about startups in general. Separately, I've been wondering how uneven human progress is. I think we have come a long way in electronics (relays to vacuum tubes to transistor to … to an M5 chip) but in some other domains, like moving objects through space, we are basically mostly reliant on thrust generated by burning fuel (EV's are a genuine advance, but mostly due to battery tech).

amai

That is bad. How can they collect important data if the rocket doesn't explode at launch? Space-X does it better.

doodlebugging

Congratulations to those who have worked so hard to make this happen. I wish you continued success. It is great that they have realized both mission targets on their second flight attempt. I think the more options there are for access to space, the more likely we are as a species to launch useful payloads that will help us understand how we fit in and how we can better manage our own situation. It is disconcerting to see the night sky fill with constellations of satellites but there is hope that they will be used for productive purposes.

hn_submit

Germany having its own sovereign launch capability will eventually sink ESA.

protocolture

Elon on the phone to Donald this morning demanding more protection.