Comment by MisterMunchkin
14 hours ago
How can it be the first European rocket? There’s the ESA! Are you telling me we have all these organisations and none of them have ever launched from their own continent?
14 hours ago
How can it be the first European rocket? There’s the ESA! Are you telling me we have all these organisations and none of them have ever launched from their own continent?
Europe isn't on or remotely near the equator, which is somewhat favorable for launches.
> The German company Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Space Center in northern Norway today
To speculate, they could be targeting a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit
ESA launches French Guiana. Since it is cheaper to launch closer to the equator with the extra speed provided by the earth's rotation.
For satellites that should be in Sun-synchronous orbit Andøy is a great place to launch from
Really comes in handy to still have a couple of colonies near the equator.
It's also better to have the massive amounts of emissions far away from your own population.
French Guiana is not a colony, it is a region of France. People who live there have the same constitutional rights as anyone living in mainland France.
It has the same status in France as Alaska does in the US.
15 replies →
A fully loaded Falcon 9 carries less kerosene than 1 (one single) A380. What level of concerntrolling is this?
>Really comes in handy to still have a couple of colonies near the equator.
>It's also better to have the massive amounts of emissions far away from your own population.
That's the dumbest comment i read since a long time, thanks.
> How can it be the first European rocket?
Not at all. You've missed the "Private" in the headline. And that it apparently is.
Article says Western Europe, but Norway is in Northern Europe.
“First rocket to launch from Europe outside Russia” would have been perfectly correct.
In the political sense, «Western Europe» is typically taken to be «NATO Europe», and «Eastern Europe» is «Warsaw Pact Europe». Which is different from a strict geographic definition.
That is also not correct anymore as Northern countries were reallocated to include the Baltics in UN as an example.
They launch from Guiana afaik
French Guiana to be exact, which is a different country
Edit: Misread
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It isn't. Plesetsk is in European Russia and was built to prevent overreliance on Baikonur
You are thinking about Vostochny in Russian Far East. Plesetsk was an early ICBM launch site that started doing orbital launches in 1966. It was the busiest spaceport in Soviet times, and the cumulative number of orbital launches from Plesetsk still probably exceeds those from Florida.
The French used to launch their rockets from Algeria. Their first satellite was launched from there. Since then they moved to (French) Guiana.
The UK launched from Australia.
And Russia launches some rockets from Plesetsk, in Europe.