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.
The book the show is based on / related to, When heavens went on sale (by Ashlee Vance) is well worth a read, as are Liftoff and Reentry (by Eric Berger).
"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).
> CEO and Co-founder Daniel Metzler: “Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great success. We had a clean liftoff, 30 seconds of flight and even got to validate our Flight Termination System. With this result, we feel confident to approach our second flight.”
By just looking at the video, you can see that they cut the engines after the rocket starts tilting. I guess that’s the flight termination system. Also, it didn't fall into the ground, but into the water.
I've read a lot about this from at least the United States perspective. The rocket wasn't launched from the United States, but the FAA requirements on flight termination is the ceasing of thrust and removing "energy" from the vehicle by rupturing tanks if they pose a danger. The primary thing that's trying to be prevented by flight termination systems is damage/danger to uninvolved parties. So if it's low to the ground simply shutting off the engines is a perfectly fine solution to the issue. If its higher then rupturing the tanks will be needed as it's likely going to land outside the safety area.
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.
> & continental is required to exclude the LauncherOne attempt
Also to exclude a few hundred launches from French Guiana, which is politically part of France and the EU (but certainly not geographically in Europe).
Days ago I read an interview in which somebody from Isar said that they would be happy to get 30 seconds of flight time. They would learn a lot from the data. It's more or less what happened.
This is excellent. I didn't realize earlier they were going to fly so soon already. Just now fixes and more flights. I hope the press, voters or investors don't treat the crash as a reason to cut off funding.
Too bad all European spaceports seem to be so awkwardly placed for the purpose of spectating launches. Main one in one of the most remote areas of jungle in the world, there's one in Sweden (been focusing on suborbital launches) far to the north where only moose live, now this. Americans are really lucky in that regard.
If someone built a space port in the Canary Islands that would actually be at a similar latitude to Cape Canaveral, though the latitude of French Guiana is hard to beat (and the Canary Islands are technically part of Africa, not Europe).
Morocco might also not be very happy with this. Generally, your ideal site for equatorial launches has ~nothing to the east, for a long way. There's a reason that ESA uses the (on the face of it ridiculously inconvenient) French Guiana facility.
Readit News
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
See: https://isaraerospace.com/newsroom-first-test-flight
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.
https://youtu.be/bykfQ3J4NNc?t=2049
edit: And different camera angles here,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlAgenP2RxM
https://tv.vg.no/nyheter/se-den-historiske-rakettoppskytning...
Almost everywhere along the coast.
Just breathtaking.
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.
Also to exclude a few hundred launches from French Guiana, which is politically part of France and the EU (but certainly not geographically in Europe).