When Elon Musk’s SpaceX pulled off yet another feat of technical wizardry last year — not only flying the biggest rocket ever built back to its launch site, but using two giant mechanical arms to pluck it out of the air — you could almost hear the groans from European competitors.
As US spacetech basked in glory, doleful Europeans were left to wonder if their big space moment would ever arrive. A scathing meme comparing American and European achievements caught the mood, depicting the rocket-catch alongside plastic caps remaining attached to bottles, a design made mandatory in EU states.
Against this backdrop, German rocket maker Isar Aerospace made its long-awaited maiden launch on Sunday. But the test rocket, which took off from a Norwegian spaceport, crashed less than 30 seconds after taking flight.
In the face of what some might consider a failure, however, many European onlookers were celebratory. “I watched it on my phone and I was fearful for them,” says Stanislas Maximin, cofounder and executive chairman of French rocket maker Latitude, which aims to fly a test vehicle soon. “It’s historical, it goes beyond competition. But I was also thinking, well, this could be a lot of pressure for our launch if it goes well.”
Others worry Isar’s launch showed how far Europe has to go to build up its space capabilities and, someday, catch up to the US and market leader SpaceX. Europe’s rocket hopefuls — including Germany’s Rocket Factory Augsburg, set to fly later this year — are entering a very challenging market.
Part of the game
SpaceX flight rates and prices have undercut Europe’s newest government-funded rocket, Ariane 6, which finally flew in 2024 after years of delay and development costs estimated at €4bn. Musk’s company, which made 134 orbital launches in 2024, slightly more than half the global total according to a SpaceNews analysis, is the first choice for European startups aiming to send a payload to space.
The EU has also been forced to turn to SpaceX to launch its satellites, including two for its Galileo navigation system. In the meantime, SpaceX is introducing its even bigger “Starship” rockets — though its most recent flight attempt exploded — that could cut launch costs still further.
European space is “10 years behind SpaceX”, says Maximin. He doesn’t blame governmental red tape. “Getting a licence is difficult but at the same time we’re building a rocket. It’s a pain but it’s part of the game.” Nor is it a lack of funding. “Private equity is doing its part. We just need to be faster. Faster to test, to iterate; to try things. You should burn rockets, you should crash them, you learn way more that way.”
Isar’s rocket is a two-stage vehicle designed to place up to 1,000kgs into low Earth orbit. Cofounder and CEO Daniel Metzler told Sifted prior to the test that the point of the launch was to gather data, not make it into space. He pointed out that it took SpaceX multiple attempts to make it into orbit, and that they want to “be better than SpaceX on that.”
Maximin, meanwhile, says Latitude will likely go through one or two crashes en route to its final design. He says: “If it’s three I would be sad.”
Like ‘2005 SpaceX’
That Isar’s first test flight is “similar” to SpaceX’s first launch, but almost 20 years later, is partly the fault of European governments, argues Bulent Altan, founding partner of VC Alpine Space Ventures and a former SpaceX engineer, who oversaw the company’s Falcon and Dragon vehicles as well as its early Starlink efforts. Altan is also an angel investor in Isar Aerospace.
“Let’s face it, those people who run those agencies, who run those governmental decisions, are not blind either: they [often] go out to the West Coast of the US and go take tours of SpaceX and and they go take tours of NASA,” Altan tells Sifted. “They know what is possible and what’s available. It’s on them now to realise this can be done in Europe, and change their mentality.
“When it comes to the amount of action that’s happening in the governments, yes, we are at the 2005 SpaceX time.”
Although some have pointed out that Isar had more funding than SpaceX for its first flight — an estimated $100m versus Isar’s €400m — Altan argues that SpaceX had some advantages: It had a talent pool in the US with rocket engine knowledge, backing from NASA and the US Air Force, and an inherited test site from another rocket company, Beal Aerospace, he says. “All of these were not 100% available to Isar.”
Still, the talent and government support differences help contribute to the gulf between the US and Europe, industry insiders say. Another problem is Europe’s procurement system.
Speaking to Sifted, Mark Boggett, CEO and cofounder at London-based VC firm Seraphim Space, says “all of Europe is rooting for [Isar] to succeed” but said launching rockets remained a challenging business. “We have avoided launch as a category as we fear achieving incremental development beyond SpaceX is a herculean task that requires very deep pockets.”
Maureen Haverty, a principal at Seraphim Space, told Sifted last year that, unlike Europe, the US government has become a strong customer for space startups and provides “great contracts really almost matched to every stage of development [of a company] — like, a couple of million really early on, up to hundreds of millions,” she said last spring.
“That just absolutely does not exist in Europe.” She argued that has led to European startups getting “caught” in the early stages and failing to get enough traction to reach the growth stage.
Others are concerned there may be too many privately-funded ventures vying to launch in Europe.
José Mariano López-Urdiales, founder and CEO of Spanish company Zero 2 Infinity, which is developing high-altitude balloons to fly payloads to the edge of space, calls it “a scattershot use of resources” and predicts that “it won’t be pretty in the end for many of these companies.”
López-Urdiales met Isar’s Metzler years ago, when the then-student almost interned at his company “He’s brilliant,” he tells Sifted. But the Spanish founder is still doubtful whether European ventures can catch up with SpaceX.
Latitude’s Maximin, however, says concentrating funding is more dangerous than spreading bets around multiple ventures. “Europe shouldn’t protect monopolies,” he says. “Fund a bunch of space companies through a competitive bidding process and continue funding those that hit their targets.
“You don’t need €4bn to develop a rocket.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/europe-rocket-launch-behind-spacex/
