When the German rocket hit orbit, Europe just ended a story that began 53 years ago

On the evening of September 5, 2026, at Andøya Space Center, a spaceport located close to Norway's Arctic circle, a rocket less than 28 meters high left the launch pad and disappeared into the gray sky. More than 7 minutes later, Spectrum, a product of German company Isar Aerospace, officially entered an elliptical orbit around the Earth. That was the first time in history that a rocket was successfully launched into orbit from mainland Europe, not counting overseas launch sites like Kourou in French Guiana that Europe has been using for nearly half a century.

Yesterday, Isar Aerospace's rocket successfully launched into orbit, but few people knew that it would end a story of the 1970s, and open another story that could be called similar. Minh wondered, and I think many people interested in this topic will also ask: why a continent that has had a space program since the 1970s, has sent probes to Comet, and has a Galileo navigation satellite that competes fairly with GPS, must wait until 2026 to have a self-propelled rocket fly from its own territory? The answer lies in a politically charged design choice made in 1964, and now being rewritten by private companies like Isar.

The Symphonie satellite and the cost of hitching a ride on someone else's rocket

The story of Europe's space independence began not with scientific ambition, but with a diplomatic slap. In 1973, France and West Germany cooperated to create the Symphonie telecommunications satellite, but when they needed to launch it into orbit, they were forced to rely on American rockets because Europe did not have a reliable commercial launch vehicle at that time. Washington agreed to launch, but with an almost imposed condition: Symphonie would not be used for commercial purposes, to avoid competition with US satellite telecommunications companies.

First design of the Symphonie satellite That clause so angered the space ministers of ten European countries that, on July 31, 1973 in Brussels, they signed a decision to launch a completely European rocket program, independent of anyone. That was the origin of the Ariane rocket line. After many delays due to technical and weather problems, Ariane 1 finally took off successfully on Christmas Eve 1979 from Kourou, French Guiana, marking what the European Space Agency (ESA) later called "Europe's first independent space adventure".

The Ariane 1 rocket, successfully took off on Christmas Eve 1979 from Kourou, French Guiana. ESA itself was born from that same logic. In 1975, the European rocket development organization ELDO and the space research organization ESRO, both established in 1964, merged to form ESA with nine founding members. To date, ESA has 22 member countries, and one of their core programs still bears that historic name: Ariane, now in the Ariane 6 generation, still with the original mission of ensuring Europe has independent access to space.

Half a century later, the dependency scenario repeats itself, just with a different name

It sounds like Europe has solved the problem of space independence since 1979. But the problem is that the Ariane model, funded by governments and operated through the ArianeGroup corporation, has never been really cheap or flexible. Meanwhile, America's SpaceX with its reusable Falcon 9 has lowered launch prices to a level that makes it difficult for both Ariane 6 and most competitors to compete directly. As a result, despite having its own rockets, Europe is still sending more and more satellites, including those of strategic projects, on American rockets because they are simply cheaper and have more dense launch schedules.

And Isar Aerospace is a similar story, just in a different setting

Spectrum's journey has not been smooth

If one only looks at the results on September 5, it is easy to think that Isar is on the path to success. In fact, it's the opposite. Spectrum's first flight, titled "Going Full Spectrum", took off in March 2025 and fell back to the ground, exploding less than a minute after leaving the launch pad. Isar later determined the cause was an unintentional opening of the vent valve combined with loss of attitude control during the initial orbital phase.

Isar Aerospace faced many failures before successfully launching on September 5 The second flight, "Onward and Upward", was scheduled to launch in January 2026 but was repeatedly delayed: a pressure valve problem pushed the schedule to March, then bad weather and a boat straying into a safe area forced the cancellation of multiple tests in March, followed by a leak in the composite pressure tank in April, and another stall in June due to the discovery of abnormalities in the rocket's fluid system. It took nearly a year and a half since the first failure for Spectrum to actually fly again and this time successfully, carrying five cubesat satellites and an integral scientific experiment. With the capacity to carry about 1000 kg into low orbit, equivalent to a Falcon 9 carrying about 20 tons divided into smaller pieces, Spectrum is still at a different level in terms of scale, Spectrum is not a direct competitor of SpaceX. But Isar is betting on a different segment: small and medium-sized satellites, with a factory in Munich that the company claims can produce more than 30 rockets a year. ESA representative Toni Tolker-Nielsen described this as a step towards "the European satellite launch market becoming more diverse and sustainable", although he also cautiously added that the results of this second flight, whether successful or not, are still valuable experience for Isar.

An old question, in a new form

The most remarkable thing when placing the two stories, Symphonie in 1973 and Spectrum in 2026, side by side, is that Europe is repeating the same lesson but with a different actor. In 1973, the solution was for governments to join forces to build a national missile program. In 2026, the solution being tested is for private companies like Isar, along with others vying for the first launch slot from British soil, to compete on their own and innovate faster than an intergovernmental organization could. No one is sure whether this privatization model will recreate the success of the Ariane era, especially when compared to the scale and speed of SpaceX's current rocket launch. But if you look at history, Europe has never had the tendency to sit still in the face of having to ride someone to space. The open question now is no longer "can Europe make its own rockets", but "can Europe do it fast enough and cheaply enough so that it really changes the balance, instead of just being a symbolic milestone".