Preparations are under way for a rocket test flight in Norway that could make history and give Europe greater independence from the market leader in orbital launches, the United States.
Isar Aerospace says it is planning to launch on 24 March between 12.30pm and 3.30pm CET, weather permitting.
Okay but why do we need that? As I read it Europa had a spaceport, now we have a second one, now what? I mean there was a reason to launch from SA and not Europe, right?
Mhm I guess it would reduce transport cost of the equipment you want to launch as you don’t have to ferry it down to French Guiana first.
Launching from Norway over the ocean means launching due north or slightly west (the spaceport website says 90 to 110° inclination). West is the “wrong” way for fuel efficiency (probably not so important at these high inclination). These polar orbit are more useful for low earth orbit (earth observation mainly), a satellite can change its inclination but that’s more fuel and less useful payload mass. With inclination change, the site could be used to launch constellations.
Big communication satellite need to launch at lower inclination (closer to the equator and due east).
So it makes sense only for some use case, but it’s great to see redundancies. And if it works well, maybe some day they could get a pas in french Guyana.