First Orbital Rocket Launched from European Soil, Rocket Crashes, but It's Cool [video]
51 comments
·March 30, 2025consumer451
rsynnott
Europe launches lots of rockets. Just not _from_ (geographical) Europe, because Europe is a bad place to launch equatorial orbit rockets from; it's too high latitude, and there's too much stuff for bits of the rocket to fall on (most launches are equatorial/equatorial-ish, and for those launching east is desireable, but obviously not practical in most of Europe). European rockets are launched from French Guiana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre), which is part of France, and politically in Europe (it's in the EU), but not geographically in Europe.
The Norway site is reasonable for polar orbit rockets, but this company appear to plan to use the existing ESA spaceport in Guiana for equatorial launches.
themgt
Orbital launches in 2024:
USA: 158
China: 68
Russia: 17
Japan: 7
India: 5
Iran: 4
Europe: 3
North Korea: 1
perihelions
- "Europe: 3"
It's worse than it looks: two of those were mini-rockets (Vega), and the Ariane 6 was an R&D test launch with no payload (mass simulator only).
pb7
This is just another of many examples of Europe's decline in global relevance. It's what happens when your chief innovation is regulation.
tilt_error
In 1995, World War III almost broke out after a rocket launch from the exact same location [1]. It was only a coincidence that stopped the Russians from doing retaliatory nuclear rocket launches. So, indeed, launching to the east is not a good idea from this latitude.
0_____0
ESA has had loads of orbital launches. Arianespace is a French company and the world's first commercial space launch co. Not sure it's reasonable to discount EU as stagnated.
There are few places in EU that make sense to launch from - the ideal launch site is from the equator, from land, with an empty ocean to the East to launch over. Look at the EU geographically and you can see why the European launches would chose a non EU site.
Now with the US and Russia both becoming poor candidates geopolitically, I suppose it makes sense to explore local options, even if they're less efficient/safe/convenient.
rsynnott
> Now with the US and Russia both becoming poor candidates geopolitically, I suppose it makes sense to explore local options, even if they're less efficient/safe/convenient.
I don't think that's the reason. The ESA exclusively uses a spaceport in French Guiana, which is politically in France and in the EU, but is not geographically in Europe. This company plans to use the Guiana spaceport, too, for equatorial launches (using the old Diamant launch facility). But the Norway site is fine for _polar_ launches.
qwytw
> it's reasonable to discount EU as stagnated
In this case it is. It peaked in the 1990s with resurgency after Ariane 5 came out but it hasn't been competitive for many years now.
Arianespace was kind of the SpaceX of the 80s and 90s and IIRC they had the majority of the market for a few years.
Unfortunately Europe got permanently got stuck in the early 2000s in quite a few ways.
ekimekim
I'm surprised they don't see more activity for polar orbits. You want to launch north-west or south-west and into ocean, northern scandanavia seems perfect for that.
input_sh
Going westwards means going against Earth's rotation, requiring extra fuel and what not. That's why almost every rocket goes eastwards.
HyprMusic
It's not that Europe has never developed the tech... the UK developed and launched an orbital rocket in the 60s/70s but it had to be shipped to Australia to be launched. I can't remember the specifics but I recall reading that Europe just isn't a geographically optimal place to launch rockets.
qwytw
> has never developed the tech
Well... an European company controlled > 50% of the commercial orbital launch market back in the late 80s and 80s.
That might have been tricky to achieve without developing the tech first.
ge96
There was another famous rocket crash where it just tipped over, I think it had an overflow problem
Oh yeh it's Ariane flight V88
FredPret
This was launched from the continent of Europe, but there's a little slice of France (it has the most surprising shape of any country) in South America where the ESA normally launches from
panzagl
Another notable Norwegian rocket launch:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-russian-radar...
hangonhn
In that situation, assuming the worst possible scenario, who would have Russia retaliated against? Would they have just assumed it was America? It seems hard to attribute a missile fired from a submarine near you -- I think? It's a question that I never had even consider would factor into that decision.
verzali
What's going on here? I swear I read a few days ago the exact same comments that were apparently posted here a few minutes ago. Is there some kind of strange duplication going on?
mschuster91
That's the second-chance pool: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998309
Apparently HN also rewrites comment timestamps, but can't find the relevant post.
perihelions
It does. It also has a rare race condition you can occasionally notice, where the fake-timestamp of the parent comment is in the future of that of the child comments.
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woobar
Technically Russia's Plesetsk is in Europe. With hundreds of launches over the last 60 years.
perihelions
Also here,
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43524784 ("Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight (nasaspaceflight.com)", 57 comments)
raphinou
Why is the launch site so much in the north? I thought the closer to the equator the better. Anyone able to clarify why?
HPsquared
High latitude launch sites are better for polar or highly inclined orbits.
Consider a launch from the equator targeting a pure polar orbit (i.e. going over the poles). You not only have to reach orbit, but also cancel out the "equatorial direction" component of your initial velocity to zero, which takes extra delta-v.
Polar orbits are good for a single satellite to see the entire Earth's surface (basically scanning over a different part each orbit), which is often desirable depending on the purpose. For example something that wants to measure the entire atmosphere or photograph the entire surface, etc.
perihelions
This isn't true. Because it's a vector addition of velocity vectors—not scalars.
The orbit you want to reach is a delta-v of about 9.0 km/s in the polar direction,
↑ 9.0 km/s
The speed of the Earth's rotation, that you would want to cancel, is maximally 0.46 km/s on the equator, in the azimuthal direction,
→ 0.46 km/s
So your delta-v vector is ↑ 9.0 km/s pointing north, plus ← 0.46 km/s pointing west (cancelling the Earth's rotation), for a vector sum of magnitude
sqrt( (9.0 km/s)^2 + (0.46 km/s)^2 )
= 9.01 km/s
Launching into a polar orbit is equally easy, from any latitude!
⁂
The converse isn't true. If you're trying to reach an equatorial orbit, the delta-v into that orbit is co-linear with the earth's rotation,
(→ 9.0 km/s), (→ 0.46 km/s)
That's a scalar sum! An azimuthal launch is 460 m/s cheaper on the equator—you inherit the full speed of the Earth's rotation. Latitude is a significant factor here: it's easier to launch, the closer to you are to the equator.
(More profoundly, the orbit you're trying to reach might not even pass through the point you're trying to launch from. This happens if the target orbit inclination is smaller than your launch site's latitude (in absolute value)).
HPsquared
Trigonometry in action! I stand corrected.
zardo
And they can time it so they get the sun at the same relative location for each photo pass.
diggan
I think it's just the best available location in Europe for it. Previously, the same company were doing launches from European territory (French Guiana), but not on continental Europe, which seems to be the new direction.
https://isaraerospace.com/press/andoya-spaceport-future-laun...
MomsAVoxell
I really have to wonder why Spain isn’t a viable launch site .. anyone know?
Mordisquitos
If you're wondering because Spain is southerly and hence closer to the Equator, consider this: the extreme southernmost point of continental Spain (latitude 36° N) is still farther north than most of North Carolina in the USA [0].
Only the Canary Islands have comparable latitudes to Cape Canaveral. While on the one hand a Canarian launch site could perhaps be a huge economic and productive boon for the Islands, I think that it might conflict with their unique ecosystems, tourism, and even (maybe?) with their current use as a base for telescopes, which is useful thanks to their high mountains and low pollution.
DiggyJohnson
I wonder if its because (1) theres no space left on the Med coast in Spain for this or (2) if a Spanish launch site does not offer enough angle for moderately inclined orbits because (3) they would still be dropping hardware on central Europe for nearly all common orbit profiles.
numpad0
I suppose they're not launching eastward from West Europe in current political climate. Polar sites are ok for spy sats.
Polar-to-equatorial plane changes aren't impossible either, I remember Russia occasionally doing for commercial launches, before the invasion.
lupusreal
Very cool. Looks pretty cold there in fact. I wonder if that makes the cryogenic prop handling any more efficient.
> 14:42: It's a shame—it's obviously historic as the first attempt at an orbital rocket launch from Europe. And I pointed out, yeah, Germany was pretty much the first to build big liquid-fueled rockets, yet somehow, Western Europe has never launched a rocket to orbit. They've been beaten by Asia, Russia, North America, South America, Africa, and Australasia. Rockets have been launched from all those continents, but Western Europe has not had an orbital rocket launch in all its glorious history.
This is such an interesting point. Europe has thrived, and yet also stagnated in some ways, in the post-WWII story arc. I am biased as a fan of of space launch and Europe, but this feels like a positive moment.