Launchers

Isar Aerospace is expected to attempt its second two-stage Spectrum vehicle test flight, a key step after its first, partially successful liftoff in 2025. In parallel, Spain’s PLD Space and its Miura-5 remain the second contender — after Isar — for the European Launcher Challenge, a competition that increasingly looks like Europe’s closest analogue to NASA’s early COTS era. In the meantime, Ariane 64 is expected to fly after being postponed from 2025 and Vega-C is officially targeting three to four launches.

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Emma Gatti is a planetary scientist, editor and journalist, and serves as a research professor in Space Journalism and Current Affairs at the Faculty of Space Technology, AGH University of Krakow. She is also the director of The Space Republic, a media...