German startup Isar Aerospace has become the first European company to launch a fully commercial rocket into orbit, marking a significant milestone for the continent's space industry. The success of the Spectrum rocket positions the eight-year-old firm as the clear frontrunner among a growing cluster of European launch startups, all seeking to break the dominance of state-backed providers and give Europe genuine independent access to space.

The two-stage Spectrum rocket, standing 92 feet (28 metres) tall, lifted off from Andøya Spaceport in Arctic Norway on Saturday evening and reached orbit within seven minutes. Isar was founded in 2018 by three Technical University of Munich students, Daniel Metzler, Josef Fleischmann and Markus Brandl, and has since raised roughly $1 billion in private funding while growing to nearly 500 employees, making it Europe's best-funded private launch company. Its achievement is seen as a boost for the European Space Agency, which has relied on Arianespace's Ariane 6 and Avio's Vega-C rockets, both heavily subsidised yet only marginally cost-competitive against global rivals.