B1 · Intermediate
12 min
technologysciencegeopoliticsbusiness
El Cohete que No Despega: Europa y la Carrera del Espacio
The Rocket That Won't Launch: Europe and the Space Race
Fletcher breaks down this story in English. Octavio reacts and expands in Spanish. Follow along with the live transcript, tap any word for its translation. Intermediate level — perfect for intermediate learners expanding their range.
So here's a question for you.
When was the last time Europe launched a rocket into orbit from European soil, under a European flag, on a European rocket?
Bueno, mira, la respuesta es complicada.
Well, look, the answer is complicated.
Europa tiene el cohete Ariane, pero lo lanza desde Guayana Francesa, en América del Sur.
Europe has the Ariane rocket, but it launches from French Guiana, in South America.
No es exactamente suelo europeo.
That's not exactly European soil.
Right.
And this week, a German company called Isar Aerospace tried to change that.
They tried to launch their rocket, called Spectrum, from a spaceport in Norway.
And they failed.
For the third time.
Sí, y el nombre de la misión es perfecto para esta situación: «Onward and Upward».
Yes, and the name of the mission is perfect for this situation: 'Onward and Upward.' In Spanish, something like 'Forward and upward.' But the rocket went neither forward nor upward.
En español, algo como «Adelante y hacia arriba».
Pero el cohete no fue ni hacia adelante ni hacia arriba.
Look, I don't want to make fun of them too hard here, because the third postponement is painful, but it's also just...
rockets.
The history of spaceflight is basically a history of things not going as planned.
Es que los cohetes son increíblemente difíciles.
The thing is, rockets are incredibly difficult.
Hay miles de componentes, y si uno tiene un problema pequeño, tienes que parar todo.
There are thousands of components, and if one has a small problem, you have to stop everything.
Isar canceló esta vez por una posible fuga, un «leak» en inglés.
Isar cancelled this time because of a possible leak.
A leak.
Which sounds almost embarrassingly mundane, right?
But a fuel or oxidizer leak on a rocket is the kind of thing that ends missions, and careers, and sometimes lives.
You don't push through that.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Pero vamos a explicar quién es Isar Aerospace, porque es una empresa muy interesante.
But let's explain who Isar Aerospace is, because it's a very interesting company.
La fundaron tres jóvenes alemanes en 2018, en Múnich.
Three young Germans founded it in 2018, in Munich.
Y tienen una visión muy ambiciosa.
And they have a very ambitious vision.
Three guys in Munich in 2018.
I mean, that sentence would have been science fiction twenty years ago.
You needed a government, a billion-dollar budget, and decades of institutional knowledge to build a rocket company.
A ver, no empezaron con nada.
Look, they didn't start with nothing.
Recibieron mucho dinero de inversores, más de 350 millones de euros.
They received a lot of money from investors, more than 350 million euros.
Pero la idea es europea: construir un cohete pequeño y barato para satélites pequeños.
But the idea is European: build a small and cheap rocket for small satellites.
And the launch site is Andøya.
Which is not a place most people have heard of.
It's a small island in northern Norway, above the Arctic Circle.
So why Norway?
Why there?
Bueno, la ubicación es estratégica.
Well, the location is strategic.
Andøya está muy al norte, y eso es perfecto para lanzar satélites a órbitas polares.
Andøya is very far north, and that's perfect for launching satellites into polar orbits.
Los satélites polares son muy importantes para observar el clima y la Tierra.
Polar satellites are very important for observing the climate and the Earth.
So from Andøya you can put a satellite into an orbit that passes over both poles, which means it covers the entire planet every day as the Earth rotates beneath it.
Weather satellites, spy satellites, Earth observation.
That's the sweet spot.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y además, Noruega es parte de la Agencia Espacial Europea, la ESA.
And also, Norway is part of the European Space Agency, ESA.
Así que no es una elección rara.
So it's not a strange choice.
Es una colaboración entre Alemania y Noruega dentro de Europa.
It's a collaboration between Germany and Norway within Europe.
Here's what gets me, though.
The European Space Agency exists since 1975.
Half a century.
And Europe still doesn't have a reliable, independent launch capability on its own continent right now.
How did that happen?
La verdad es que durante muchos años, Europa dependió de los rusos.
The truth is that for many years, Europe depended on the Russians.
El cohete Soyuz era barato y funcionaba bien.
The Soyuz rocket was cheap and worked well.
Europa pagaba a Rusia para lanzar sus satélites.
Europe paid Russia to launch its satellites.
Era una relación cómoda.
It was a comfortable relationship.
Comfortable until 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and that relationship collapsed overnight.
The Russians pulled their technicians, took their rockets home, and suddenly Europe was scrambling.
Sí, fue un momento muy difícil.
Yes, it was a very difficult moment.
Y entonces también llegó el otro problema grande: SpaceX.
And then the other big problem arrived too: SpaceX.
La empresa de Elon Musk cambió completamente el mercado de los lanzamientos espaciales.
Elon Musk's company completely changed the launch market.
The extraordinary thing is how fast SpaceX disrupted everything.
They developed reusable rockets, which cut the cost of getting a kilogram into orbit by a factor of ten in about fifteen years.
That just broke the old model.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
El Falcon 9 de SpaceX puede lanzar satélites por un precio que Ariane 5 no podía competir.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 can launch satellites at a price that Ariane 5 couldn't compete with.
Y Ariane 6, el nuevo cohete europeo, llegó tarde y con muchos problemas.
And Ariane 6, the new European rocket, arrived late and with many problems.
Ariane 6 finally launched in 2024, years behind schedule, and it still can't land and reuse its booster the way SpaceX can.
So Europe is playing catch-up on two fronts at once.
Bueno, y aquí entra Isar Aerospace.
Well, and this is where Isar Aerospace comes in.
La filosofía de Isar es diferente a Ariane.
Isar's philosophy is different from Ariane.
No quieren hacer un cohete grande y caro.
They don't want to make a big expensive rocket.
Quieren hacer algo más pequeño, más flexible y más rápido.
They want something smaller, more flexible, and faster.
Right, their rocket Spectrum is designed to carry payloads up to about 1,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit.
That's not a huge satellite, but there's a massive market for that right now because of the small satellite revolution.
Mira, en los últimos diez años, los satélites se hicieron mucho más pequeños.
Look, in the last ten years, satellites became much smaller.
Antes un satélite era tan grande como un autobús.
Before, a satellite was as big as a bus.
Ahora puedes hacer un satélite del tamaño de una caja de zapatos.
Now you can make a satellite the size of a shoebox.
And if your satellite is the size of a shoebox, you don't need a giant rocket.
You need a small, responsive rocket that can launch frequently, on your schedule, not when there's room on somebody else's flight.
Es que ese es el mercado que Isar quiere capturar.
That's exactly the market Isar wants to capture.
Y no están solos en Europa.
And they're not alone in Europe.
También hay otras startups, como RFA, que también es alemana, y Rocket Factory Augsburg.
There are other startups too, like RFA, which is also German, and Rocket Factory Augsburg.
Todas quieren el mismo mercado.
They all want the same market.
So you have this interesting moment where private European companies are racing to do what the old institutional model couldn't.
And Isar got there first, in terms of actually getting a rocket to the pad.
That counts for something.
Sí, llegaron al lugar de lanzamiento.
Yes, they got to the launch site.
Eso ya es un logro importante.
That's already an important achievement.
Construyeron un cohete real, lo transportaron a Noruega, y lo pusieron en la plataforma de lanzamiento.
They built a real rocket, transported it to Norway, and put it on the launch pad.
Muchas empresas no llegan tan lejos.
Many companies don't get that far.
I mean, three postponements sounds discouraging, but Rocket Lab, the New Zealand company that's now one of the most successful small rocket companies in the world, had multiple scrubs on their early missions too.
This is normal.
A ver, SpaceX también explotó muchos cohetes al principio.
Look, SpaceX also blew up many rockets in the beginning.
Elon Musk habló muchas veces de los primeros Falcon 1, que fallaron.
Elon Musk talked many times about the first Falcon 1s, which failed.
La pregunta es si tienes suficiente dinero para continuar después de los fracasos.
The question is whether you have enough money to continue after the failures.
And that's the real question for Isar.
They have 350 million euros, which sounds like a lot, but in rocket development it goes fast.
Every postponement costs money.
Every test costs money.
La verdad es que el contexto geopolítico actual ayuda a Isar.
The truth is that the current geopolitical context helps Isar.
Con la guerra en Ucrania y las tensiones con Rusia y China, los gobiernos europeos quieren tener acceso independiente al espacio.
With the war in Ukraine and tensions with Russia and China, European governments want to have independent access to space.
Eso es bueno para Isar.
That's good for Isar.
This is the argument for space sovereignty, and it's become genuinely urgent.
GPS, communications, weather forecasting, military surveillance, financial transactions.
All of that runs through satellites.
If you don't control your launch capability, someone else controls your infrastructure.
Mira, en la guerra de Ucrania, el papel de los satélites fue fundamental.
Look, in the war in Ukraine, the role of satellites was fundamental.
Starlink de SpaceX ayudó al ejército ucraniano enormemente.
SpaceX's Starlink helped the Ukrainian army enormously.
Sin acceso al espacio, Ucrania estaba en una posición mucho más difícil.
Without access to space, Ukraine was in a much more difficult position.
And Europe watched that and realized they were dependent on an American billionaire for critical military infrastructure.
That's uncomfortable, especially now when the relationship between Europe and Washington is more complicated than it's been in decades.
Bueno, es una situación irónica.
Well, it's an ironic situation.
Elon Musk creó SpaceX con el sueño de colonizar Marte.
Elon Musk created SpaceX with the dream of colonizing Mars.
Pero ahora su empresa es una parte muy importante de la geopolítica mundial.
But now his company is a very important part of global geopolitics.
No creo que él pensaba en eso al principio.
I don't think he was thinking about that at the beginning.
The thing is, the Iran war we've been covering all week makes this even more pointed.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis showed how vulnerable global infrastructure is.
Space infrastructure is no different.
You lose access, things fall apart fast.
Es que si Europa no puede lanzar sus propios satélites desde su propio territorio, depende de otros países.
The thing is, if Europe can't launch its own satellites from its own territory, it depends on other countries.
Y eso es un problema político muy serio.
And that's a very serious political problem.
Isar Aerospace es pequeña, pero representa algo más grande.
Isar Aerospace is small, but it represents something bigger.
It represents the bet that Europe is placing on the private sector to solve a problem that the public sector, ESA and the big aerospace contractors, couldn't solve quickly enough.
That's a significant philosophical shift for Europe.
La verdad, sí.
Honestly, yes.
Europa tradicionalmente prefería las grandes instituciones y los grandes contratos públicos.
Europe traditionally preferred large institutions and big public contracts.
Pero ahora está abriendo la puerta a startups como Isar.
But now it's opening the door to startups like Isar.
Eso es un cambio cultural importante en el sector espacial europeo.
That's an important cultural shift in the European space sector.
So when Spectrum finally does launch, and I say when not if, it'll be more than a technical milestone.
It'll be a signal that Europe's new model for the space economy can actually work.
No pressure, guys.
Bueno, yo espero que lo consigan.
Well, I hope they manage it.
Tres intentos fallidos son difíciles, pero la historia del espacio está llena de personas que no se rindieron.
Three failed attempts are difficult, but the history of space is full of people who didn't give up.
El día que ese cohete suba, va a ser un momento histórico para Europa.
The day that rocket goes up, it's going to be a historic moment for Europe.
Onward and upward, eventually.
Isar Aerospace, Andøya, Norway.
A small island above the Arctic Circle, and maybe the place where Europe's next chapter in space begins.
Thanks for listening to Twilingua.