German space rocket explodes seconds into test flight

By Kieran Burke 

A German start-up built a rocket with the hope of launching satellites into orbit from Europe in the future. But the test flight, the first of its kind from continental Europe, failed.

An orbital rocket launched from a Norwegian spaceport, the first launch its kind from European soil, crashed seconds after lift-off on Sunday.

The German company that built the orbital rocket, Isar Aerospace, headquartered in Ottobrunn, southeast of Munich, still hailed the test flight a success.

It said the test flight made the company the first commercial space firm "to launch an orbital rocket from Continental Europe."

The Spectrum rocket crashed into the sea some thirty seconds into its first test, but the company insisted the aim of the first flight was to gather as much data as possible.

An orbital launch vehicle is a rocket-propelled vehicle, used to deliver a payload, like satellites, from our planet into the Earth’s orbit, or to other planets.