When we think of a space launch it’s likely our minds might turn to the lush swampland of Florida’s Cape Canaveral, or the jungle of Kourou in Guyana. These are both in the tropical regions on sites as close to the Equator as the governments who built them could find, because the higher rotational speed of the planet at its widest point gives departing rockets a bit of extra kick. Even the Soviet Baikonur cosmodrome in modern-day Kazakhstan which sits at around 45 degrees North, was chosen in part to lie in one of the more southerly Soviet republics.
It’s unexpected then to report on the opening of what may at the time of writing be the world’s newest spaceport, situated on the island of Andøya in northern Norway, at around 69 degrees North. Just what is going on?
The answer for the German company Isar Aerospace is that their launches from the site will be ideally placed not for low-inclination orbits but for polar orbits, something of a valuable commodity and a worthy point of competition when compared to equatorial sites. We have shamefacedly to admit that we’re not completely au fait with Norwegian geography, so it took us a minute to find Andøya towards the top of the country’s westward chain of islands.
The spaceport itself lies in a bay facing westward over the Norwegian Sea, and the launch platform is on a stone jetty protruding into the water. It appears to be a beautiful landscape, a suitable reward for any hardy souls who make the trip to watch a launch. Unexpectedly the spaceport stands alone in Continental Europe, though before too long it’s likely to be joined by other projects including one in northern Scotland. European skies are likely to become busier over the coming years.
Erm, what about the SaxaVord spaceport in the Shetlands?
This is a good point, although SaxaVord has yet to break ground and start building anything, whereas Sutherland is now in progress..
I hope they act careful and make sure the russians read their launch announcements, we really don’t need a Black Brant Scare 2.0 ;) …
PLD Aerospace, in Spain, launched it’s first vehicle from the south of Spain a weeks ago.
Esrange in Kiruna, Sweden? Also north of the Arctic Circle. Rocket launches since 1966.
Sounding rocket launches (they just go up and fall down, cannot put a satellite in orbit)
Any reason you couldn’t launch bigger rockets?
It’s basically just a field and some houses. So yes, you can, but there are many places you could.
Esrange in Sweden has been launching stuff for a good while. Perhaps only “small” rockets…
“the first operational orbital spaceport in continental Europe”
The “orbital” qualification is important.
What are the benefits of polar launches?
#456989899234 comment glitch; Short answer is polar orbits.
It’s nice for a variety of satellites because it scans the whole surface of the earth. Look up images of polar orbit ground tracks compared to equatorial orbit ground tracks and it’ll pretty quickly make sense
The better question is, what are the benefits of a launch site that can ONLY do polar orbits? An equatorial launch site (e.g., Guyana) can launch to any orbit without plane changes, including polar orbits.
You do want to have the launch direction be clear of people in case of a failure, but you want to be close to the source of all the things you’re sending to space. I haven’t looked on a map to compare everywhere that’s been used, but maybe you decide someplace nearer to you that only has room to launch in one direction is better.
Plus, I mean, you have a certain rotational velocity and maybe that differs from the velocity of the orbit you want when it happens to pass over your launch location.
.. and also, courtesy of The Everyday Astronaut, and just released, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m75t4x1V2o, in which he answers 1) why don’t we launch from mountaintops? and also 2) why don’t we always launch from the equator? One point he makes is that from an equatorial launch site, it takes more energy to launch to polar orbits, since you have to lose all the velocity you get at the equator from the Earth’s rotation. So for polar orbits, the closer to the poles, the better.
Uh, NASA has been launching sounding rockets from Andøya for about a decade, if not longer:
2015: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/sounding-rockets/nasa-plans-twin-sounding-rocket-launches-over-norway-this-winter/
NASA’s Wallops (VA) facility often posts on social media about those experiments – it’s pretty interesting to read.
In fact, Norway started launching rockets from Andøya in 1962. Andøya Rocket Range was renamed to Andøya Space Center in 2014.
https://hgss.copernicus.org/articles/9/141/2018/
I dont think there really is to much new. There has been rocket launches from Andøya since 1962. In fact there almost was a nuclear escalation during the cold war with a rocket going astray during “The Norwegian rocket incident”. Thogh there is a new spaceport for orbital satelites sligthly before other in europe.
Ahem. Esrange.
In Sweden, right?
Like the article says, polar launches naturally lend themselves to producing a polar orbit.
Polar *orbits* have various purposes, the simplest of which is that if your orbit is near the equator but you want to pass over Alaska, you’ve messed up and you’re going to need to burn until your orbit is inclined enough that it does go over Alaska part of the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_orbit
For hacking-related, a popular thing is receiving basic / old weather satellites; there’s a polar orbit that causes the satellite to come by at the same time of day each day. Nice, since weather is the sort of thing you’d like to get at the same time of day, especially if your satellite needs sunlight to see.
Comment glitch! #456989899234
Oddly enough, I did not find any check point at the entrance of Andøya Spaceport !
You could launch communications satellites into Molniya orbits too.
But only with Thor’s permission.
Brace yourself!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident
You forgot to mention russian Plesetsk spaceport which is at 62N and operating since 1966.