The curious story of Isar Aerospace: From start-up to space company

Attempt to poach Musk, engine tests on the farm, factory in Canada: The curious story of a Munich start-up that has a chance of becoming one of the largest companies in Germany.

Over the past decade, the founders of Isar Aerospace have built a rocket company in Munich that is turning Germany into a space nation - and is intended to show that Europe can keep up with future technologies.

The start-up is transforming into an industrial company. The demand is enormous. Isar Aerospace can take on the competition and is on the way to becoming an important part of the German defense and space strategy.

You can read what the founders say about the next rocket launch and why head of technology Josef Fleischmann is leaving the company in the Handelsblatt interview here.

Düsseldorf, Munich, Paris. Josef Fleischmann spends the night in which they at Isar Aerospace want to show the world that their dream works on a balcony in the very north of Norway. It's the beginning of September, and at the Andøya Spaceport, the co-founder of Isar Aerospace and his associates want to make history in several ways: finally launch a launch vehicle from European soil; finally present a German-made space vehicle that makes it into orbit; finally send a signal that Europe can keep up in the race for future space travel.

At this moment, Fleischmann hopes that all of this will work. And yet his most urgent wish is initially a lot more mundane: that the rocket into which he and his company have invested so much energy, capital and yes, passion over the last ten years does not explode right on the launch pad.

The night is clear, the temperature mild as the countdown begins. The engines fire up and the rocket takes off. With the naked eye, Fleischmann watches as it reaches maximum speed, the stages of the rocket body separate cleanly from each other, and the payload fairing falls away as planned. The Spectrum 2 manages seven of the ten usual flight maneuvers right away before radio contact is lost after ten minutes. But no problem, the rocket correctly deploys the satellites and later burns up in Earth orbit.