Spectrum | Onward and Upward
Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum carrying Onward and Upward from Orbital Launch Pad, Andøya Spaceport at 2026-09-04 20:00:00Z. That T-0 is confirmed to the minute. The date is still provisional and can move.
COUNTDOWN
FLIGHT PLAN
The window opens at 2026-09-04 20:00:00Z and closes at 2026-09-04 21:00:00Z. Awaiting official confirmation - current date is known with some certainty.
FIELD KIT / OPTICS
Where to start if the plan is a real telescope in a real back garden.
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Celestron FirstScope 76 mm Tabletop Telescope
76 mm of aperture on a tabletop mount with nothing to align: put it on a step, point it, look. The entry point of the whole category — it comes with no finder, which is the trade — and enough scope to show lunar craters and Jupiter's four bright moons.
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Beginner Dobsonians
The category most experienced observers point a beginner at: aperture on a simple rocker mount, with no motors to fail. A starting point for browsing rather than a specific pick — compare 130 mm and 150 mm before buying.
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Beginner refractors
Lighter and quicker to set up than a Dobsonian, weaker on faint deep-sky objects. Worth browsing if the scope has to live in a cupboard and come out on a whim.
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MISSION BRIEF
Second test flight of the Isar Spectrum launch vehicle. This launch will carry 5 cubesats and 1 non-separable experiment as part of European Space Agency (ESA)'s “Boost!” program: * CyBEEsat (TU Berlin) * TriSat-S (University of Maribor) * Platform 6 (EnduroSat) * FramSat-1 (NTNU) * SpaceTeamSat1 (TU Wien Space Team) * Let It Go (Dcubed, non-separable experiment)
SOURCE: LAUNCH LIBRARY 2 // THE SPACE DEVS
LAUNCH CORRIDOR
- Due east
- The lowest orbit inclination a direct launch from here can reach — 69.1°, which is this pad’s own latitude. It also collects the most free speed from Earth’s rotation.
- Due south
- The polar and sun-synchronous corridor: 90° inclination, passing over both poles. It gets no help from Earth’s spin, which is why it costs more payload.
Drag the globe to turn it. The shading is the real terminator, and it moves.
A globe of the Earth centred on Orbital Launch Pad at latitude 69.11 degrees north, longitude 15.59 degrees east. Two curved lines leave the pad. The solid gold line runs due east and marks the lowest orbital inclination a direct launch from this site can reach, 69.1 degrees, equal to the pad’s latitude of 69.1 degrees. The dashed cyan line runs due south and marks the polar corridor at 90 degrees inclination. The darkened part of the globe is the night side. Surface wind is blowing from 175°, at 9 km/h, shown as the cyan arrow at the pad.
LAUNCH SITE
Orbital Launch Pad
Andøya Spaceport, Norway
OBSERVED 2026-08-28 00:45:00Z // OPEN-METEO (CC BY 4.0) // GENERAL CONDITIONS, NOT LAUNCH CRITERIA
Minimum direct inclination 69°. From 69° north of the equator, a direct ascent cannot enter an orbit inclined less than 69°, because an orbit of inclination i never passes over latitudes beyond ±i. Reaching an equatorial plane — what a geostationary transfer ultimately needs — therefore costs a plane change of 69° somewhere in the flight, while inclinations of 69° and above are available straight off the pad. The ground here is carried eastward at about 166 m/s (465 m/s at the equator, falling with the cosine of latitude), and a due-east launch keeps that head start.
DATUM WGS-84 // EQUIRECTANGULAR PROJECTION // ORBIT FIGURES DERIVED FROM THE PUBLISHED LATITUDE
PAD CONDITIONS
SURFACE WIND @ 10 M
9km/h
Blowing from the south, bearing 175 degrees
GUSTING
12km/h
Partly cloudy
SOURCE: OPEN-METEO CC BY 4.0
The observed block is general weather for the coordinates of Orbital Launch Pad, not launch-commit criteria. Those are written per mission by the operator and the range, cover conditions this forecast does not carry at all (electric fields, cloud layers aloft, winds through the vehicle’s own load limits), and are published only by the operator. Wind is a common reason countdowns stop for weather — that is general context, not a rule about this flight, and no number in this block is a threshold. Nothing here is a go or no-go call, and no operator figure was published for this attempt.
COMMON QUESTIONS
What time does Spectrum · Onward and Upward launch?
Isar Aerospace is targeting 2026-09-04 20:00:00Z for Spectrum | Onward and Upward. That T-0 is confirmed to the minute. The window opens at 2026-09-04 20:00:00Z and closes at 2026-09-04 21:00:00Z.
Where can I watch Spectrum · Onward and Upward launch?
Isar Aerospace streams the launch live at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss1DUqLjecc. Coverage usually opens 15 to 20 minutes before T-0, and the countdown on this page runs against the same T-0.
What is Spectrum · Onward and Upward carrying?
Second test flight of the Isar Spectrum launch vehicle. This launch will carry 5 cubesats and 1 non-separable experiment as part of European Space Agency (ESA)'s “Boost!” program: * CyBEEsat (TU Berlin) * TriSat-S (University of Maribor) * Platform 6 (EnduroSat) * FramSat-1 (NTNU) * SpaceTeamSat1 (TU Wien Space Team) * Let It Go (Dcubed, non-separable experiment)
Where does Spectrum · Onward and Upward launch from?
Spectrum | Onward and Upward lifts off from Orbital Launch Pad, Andøya Spaceport, Norway. The pad sits at 69.1084, 15.5895.