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Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

nasaspaceflight.com

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Re: Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

#21

Post by Dylan16807 »

toni wrote: post #16
nw05678 wrote: post #10

I would love to invest in this.

Launching a rocket from Earth surface looks like such a complex challenge not completely solved, and companies consider a 30-seconds journey a great success. I have sincerely no intention to trivialize this, but would we ever see rockets launched from Moon or low Earth orbit? It seems so inefficient to launch like how we do now.

> Moon or low Earth orbit

Nobody lives there (within rounding error), and shipping in supplies to build rockets costs even more than launching from the ground.

Also we can do reusable launches to LEO so it's not all that inefficient.

Re: Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

#22

Post by zamadatix »

tectonic wrote: post #3

The first orbital launch attempt from continental Europe, and the first of Europe’s batch of newspace commercial launch startups. I hope they figure out what happened and iterate quickly!

I think that should be "first commercial orbital launch attempt from continental Europe".

Commercial is required to exclude launches from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, orbital is required to exclude the Miura 1 attempt, Europe is required for obvious reasons & continental is required to exclude the LauncherOne attempt, and attempt is required for obvious reasons.

Re: Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

#23

Post by perihelions »

mrtksn wrote: post #20
michaeljx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the flight termination system consist of the rocket free-falling into the ground resulting in a fiery explosion?

The CEO said that it didn't blew up the pad: https://x.com/danielmetzler/status/1906307777242275881 I don't see why would you detonate the rocket if it doesn't pose danger to just fall down. Probably its also easier to collect the debris.

To minimize the shock impact on the ground. This one created a respectable-sized tsunami,

https://youtu.be/LlAgenP2RxM?t=116

Re: Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

#24

Post by notahacker »

toni wrote: post #16
nw05678 wrote: post #10

I would love to invest in this.

Launching a rocket from Earth surface looks like such a complex challenge not completely solved, and companies consider a 30-seconds journey a great success. I have sincerely no intention to trivialize this, but would we ever see rockets launched from Moon or low Earth orbit? It seems so inefficient to launch like how we do now.

> would we ever see rockets launched from Moon or low Earth orbit?

You need the rocket to get to LEO or the moon. Once you're actually in LEO your propulsion system needs relatively little thrust, but you've replaced a moderately hard problem of launching from earth with a much bigger one of assembling things in orbit using material that's already there...

Re: Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

#25

Post by jumploops »

As a software engineer, this might sound like a failure, but launching plus 30s of flight time means a lot of things went right.

If you’re curious about commercial launch vehicles, there’s a decent documentary about the challenges these aerospace startups face called Wild Wild Space[0].

Just getting the thing off the ground is a huge milestone. I wish them the best in future launches.

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Space

Re: Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

#26

Post by ivan_gammel »

jumploops wrote: post #25

As a software engineer, this might sound like a failure, but launching plus 30s of flight time means a lot of things went right. If you’re curious about commercial launch vehicles, there’s a decent documentary about the challenges these aerospace startups face called Wild Wild Space[0]. Just getting the thing off the ground is a huge milestone. I wish them the best in future launches. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w…

Looks like it was completely successful. They willingly terminated the launch after achieving mission goals.

Re: Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

#28

Post by impossiblefork »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #26
jumploops wrote: post #25

As a software engineer, this might sound like a failure, but launching plus 30s of flight time means a lot of things went right. If you’re curious about commercial launch vehicles, there’s a decent documentary about the challenges these aerospace startups face called Wild Wild Space[0]. Just getting the thing off the ground is a huge milestone. I wish them the best in future launches. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w…

Looks like it was completely successful. They willingly terminated the launch after achieving mission goals.

Tilting the rocket didn't work as intended though, so something did go seriously wrong.

Re: Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

#29

Post by perihelions »

apples_oranges wrote: post #27

Is this rocket „dual use“?

If your enemy is your employer and their launchpad infrastructure—yes!

Less jokingly: liquid-fueled rockets aren't very practical weapons, especially ones with cryogenic fuels like liquid oxygen. I highly recommend Clark's Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants for a history of the space and missile races, as understood from the point-of-view of a propellant chemist who worked in them. There's an amazing amount of lost art and lore from the early Cold-war space era, that's no longer relevant in the modern world, except for its sheer entertainment value.

Re: Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight

#30

Post by olex »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #26
jumploops wrote: post #25

As a software engineer, this might sound like a failure, but launching plus 30s of flight time means a lot of things went right. If you’re curious about commercial launch vehicles, there’s a decent documentary about the challenges these aerospace startups face called Wild Wild Space[0]. Just getting the thing off the ground is a huge milestone. I wish them the best in future launches. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w…

Looks like it was completely successful. They willingly terminated the launch after achieving mission goals.

"Completely successful" would've been reaching orbit. They didn't expect to get that far, but this was still a far cry from a complete success. Only milestones cleared are countdown, launch, and stable flight in fixed attitude - which still leaves a lot of big ones on the way to orbit (controlled pitchover, max-Q, stage sep, second stage ignition and operation, payload fairing separation, orbital insertion, payload separation at the very least).
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