// ARS TECHNICA — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
Some satellite companies still have an appetite for boutique launch services
“Dedicated launch is pretty essential for us for most of our missions.”
If you ask most satellite companies aside from SpaceX, they will tell you the world doesn’t have enough capacity for launching payloads into orbit. This is despite the blistering launch cadence we’ve seen around the world in recent years, led by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
Customers in any sector will, of course, usually welcome competition. Theoretically, competition will lead to lower prices and allow the best to rise to the top. It seems like the customers buying launch services were right. SpaceX is dialing back its Falcon 9 launch program, and there is no certainty about when SpaceX’s reusable next-generation super-heavy-lift rocket, Starship, will carry anything to orbit besides the company’s own Starlink satellites.
So it’s no surprise satellite operators are cheering the success of a new launch provider. This was especially the case a few days ago, when Germany’s Isar Aerospace reached orbit for the first time with its Spectrum rocket. The launcher delivered a batch of CubeSats to low-Earth orbit from a spaceport in northern Norway, and Isar tasted success after its first test flight ended in failure last year.
Isar’s success is good news for Europe’s space sector, eager for a new path to orbit alongside the continent’s incumbent launch providers, Arianespace and Avio. Several European companies are running to catch up with Isar, including another German startup, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and Spain’s PLD Space. The Exploration Company, based in Germany and France, is working on a heavy-lift-class rocket engine.
Halfway around the world from Europe, executives at the Japanese-headquartered satellite company Astroscale were awake at 5 am local time on Sunday to watch the live webcast from Norway as Isar aimed for the stars. Just days earlier, Astroscale announced it had signed a deal with Isar to launch a mission as soon as next year.
This was the second launch contract Astroscale has inked with Isar. The companies announced a contract in March for the Spectrum rocket to launch a different Astroscale satellite. Astroscale signed these agreements with Isar before the company achieved orbit.
Astroscale wasn’t alone in placing early bets on Isar. Government-backed missions from the European Space Agency, the European Union, and the Norwegian and German governments make up the bulk of the company’s launch backlog. Those customers have an interest in helping Isar gain a foothold in the launch market.
But Isar Aerospace could not count Astroscale as part of its captive market, so it was noteworthy that an established company selected an unproven rocket to launch two of its most important missions. Astroscale’s business is focused on satellite servicing and mitigation of space junk, a segment of the market that matches well with rockets the size of Isar’s Spectrum for dedicated rides to orbit.
Another satellite servicing company, US-based Katalyst Space, launched a spacecraft in July in pursuit of a NASA astronomy satellite falling out of orbit. Like Astroscale, Katalyst required a dedicated launch into a unique orbit to reach its target. It chose the seldom-used air-launched Pegasus XL rocket made by Northrop Grumman. Technical problems prevented Katalyst from rescuing NASA’s aging Swift observatory.