The European private space launch provider Isar Aerospace, headquartered in Ottobrunn, Germany, is planning to fly its Spectrum small satellite launcher on its second flight. About a year after Spectrum’s first flight failed, the company had scheduled the “Onward and Upward” mission for launch on Wednesday, March 25, at 20:00 UTC from the Orbital Launch Pad at the Andøya Spaceport in Norway.
The launch time had to be moved back to 20:21 UTC due to a range violation involving a boat. The range cleared and the countdown got all the way to T-3 seconds, just before engine ignition, when the flight aborted. After the abort, controllers called a scrub. No new launch date has been announced and Isar Aerospace disclosed an issue with propellant temperatures rising due to the time needed to get the range cleared.
Yesterday, Isar Aerospace was set to launch its qualification flight for Mission ‘Onward and Upward’ from Andøya Space during a 15 minute launch window. While all operations and check-outs were nominal throughout the countdown, Isar Aerospace was informed about an unauthorized…
— Isar Aerospace (@isaraerospace) March 26, 2026
Spectrum had originally been scheduled to fly on Jan. 21 but that attempt was scrubbed due to a faulty pressurization valve. The launch was rescheduled for March 19 but was pushed back several times due to weather concerns before the company set March 25 as the launch date.
For “Onward and Upward,” Isar Aerospace will attempt to enter orbit. This flight, taking a trajectory to a Sun-synchronous orbit, will also carry Spectrum’s first customer payloads, including five cubesats and one experiment; its objective, as per Isar Aerospace, is to qualify the launch vehicle under operational conditions.
