Some satellite companies still have an appetite for boutique launch services

Primary Journalistic Dispatch & Direct Reporting

"Dedicated launch is pretty essential for us for most of our missions."

If you ask most satellite companies aside from SpaceX, they will tell you the world doesn't have enough capacity for launching payloads into orbit. This is despite the blistering launch cadence we've seen around the world in recent years, led by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

Customers in any sector will, of course, usually welcome competition. Theoretically, competition will lead to lower prices and allow the best to rise to the top. It seems like the customers buying launch services were right. SpaceX is dialing back its Falcon 9 launch program , and there is no certainty about when SpaceX's reusable next-generation super-heavy-lift rocket, Starship, will carry anything to orbit besides the company's own Starlink satellites.

In-Depth Developments & Factual Context

So it's no surprise satellite operators are cheering the success of a new launch provider. This was especially the case a few days ago, when Germany's Isar Aerospace reached orbit for the first time with its Spectrum rocket. The launcher delivered a batch of CubeSats to low-Earth orbit from a spaceport in northern Norway, and Isar tasted success after its first test flight ended in failure last year.

Isar's success is good news for Europe's space sector, eager for a new path to orbit alongside the continent's incumbent launch providers, Arianespace and Avio. Several European companies are running to catch up with Isar, including another German startup, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and Spain's PLD Space. The Exploration Company, based in Germany and France, is working on a heavy-lift-class rocket engine .

Halfway around the world from Europe, executives at the Japanese-headquartered satellite company Astroscale were awake at 5 am local time on Sunday to watch the live webcast from Norway as Isar aimed for the stars. Just days earlier, Astroscale announced it had signed a deal with Isar to launch a mission as soon as next year.

Industry Impact & Strategic Analysis

This was the second launch contract Astroscale has inked with Isar. The companies announced a contract in March for the Spectrum rocket to launch a different Astroscale satellite. Astroscale signed these agreements with Isar before the company achieved orbit.

Astroscale wasn't alone in placing early bets on Isar. Government-backed missions from the European Space Agency, the European Union, and the Norwegian and German governments make up the bulk of the company's launch backlog. Those customers have an interest in helping Isar gain a foothold in the launch market.

But Isar Aerospace could not count Astroscale as part of its captive market, so it was noteworthy that an established company selected an unproven rocket to launch two of its most important missions. Astroscale's business is focused on satellite servicing and mitigation of space junk, a segment of the market that matches well with rockets the size of Isar's Spectrum for dedicated rides to orbit.

Forward Outlook & Market Perspective

Another satellite servicing company, US-based Katalyst Space, launched a spacecraft in July in pursuit of a NASA astronomy satellite falling out of orbit. Like Astroscale, Katalyst required a dedicated launch into a unique orbit to reach its target. It chose the seldom-used air-launched Pegasus XL rocket made by Northrop Grumman. Technical problems prevented Katalyst from rescuing NASA's aging Swift observatory.

One of Astroscale's missions assigned to launch with Isar Aerospace is ELSA-M, led by Astroscale's UK division. The ELSA-M spacecraft will capture and deorbit a satellite in Eutelsat's OneWeb broadband constellation to demonstrate end-of-life servicing. The other is ADRAS-J2, a demonstration mission partially funded by the Japanese space agency that will attempt to grab onto a defunct Japanese rocket in space and remove it from orbit. ADRAS-J2 follows a highly successful demo mission called ADRAS-J that approached and inspected the same Japanese rocket body in 2024.

Both missions are key to proving out Astroscale's capabilities for what it sees as lucrative business opportunities in the satellite servicing market. Ars spoke with Chris Blackerby, Astroscale's chief operating officer, this week to discuss the company's goals in satellite servicing and its appetite for launch services. We present a portion of the interview below.

Ars Technica: You must have been thrilled with the results from Isar's test flight. What was it like seeing the rocket reach orbit?

Chris Blackerby: It was Sunday morning, 5 am or so Japan time, and I was up watching. They did a fantastic job in everything from the PR side of it, having the chief engineer on there to explain everything. Even just watching them explain through as I was sitting on my couch early in the morning on Sunday, my confidence was growing as I was watching the team explain everything they'd done, all the prep they had taken to get to that point. We'd done a lot of background research. We had teams go out there to do due diligence research at their manufacturing site and talk to a lot of their technical leaders. So we were pretty confident already. Certainly, the launch was incredible. Checking off all the markers, all the milestones, deploying the payloads - it was everything we could have hoped for. Obviously, congratulations to them. But yeah, you're right. We have two big missions set up on Isar, and we're excited to see them continue to improve and show success and get to launch with them.

Ars: Astroscale's business case seems to require dedicated launches. Rideshare doesn't really work if you're trying to launch into a very specific orbit and reach a specific satellite for servicing. Is that correct? Why not go for a launch on a proven rocket, like Rocket Lab's Electron, which you used for your previous mission?

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