# Why RFA Should Celebrate Isar Aerospace Reaching Orbit By Peter Plötner (https://www.towardsjoyandpeace.com/about/) · Published 2026-09-07 Canonical: https://www.towardsjoyandpeace.com/essays/one-rocket-is-a-stunt/ Isar Aerospace reached orbit on September 5, 2026, on only its second flight, the first privately funded European rocket to do it. Its closest rival, Rocket Factory Augsburg, has flown 0 times, so it had no market share to lose, and everything around it moved: investors, satellite customers, spaceports, engineers, and the ESA contracts that require orbit before 2028. The pattern is the 4-minute mile: John Landy had run 4:02 six times and never under, then ran 3:57.9 just 46 days after Roger Bannister, and 2,349 men have followed. The record is zero-sum, the club is not. For technical founders: why a rival's win is free growth while customers still doubt the product works, how to tell when the market flips to price and delivery, and what the last rival win actually cost you. --- Spectrum on the pad at Andøya, Norway, March 2026, months before it reached orbit. Photo: Isar Aerospace, via ESA. In a young market a rival's win is the proof your customers were waiting for. The skill is knowing when that stops being true. By Peter Plötner. Aerospace engineer and Wayfinder Life Coach. More about Peter → Isar Aerospace reached orbit on Friday. Rocket Factory Augsburg, its closest rival, should be the happiest company in Europe this week. If a competitor's win reads as your loss, you may be counting the wrong thing. A runner named John Landy showed what to count in 1954, 46 days after somebody else got there first. On Friday night at 22:12 local time, a rocket left Andøya in northern Norway and reached orbit. The last one hadn't. In March 2025, Isar Aerospace's first Spectrum lost control about 30 seconds after liftoff and fell into the sea. This one flew the whole sequence: stage separation, second-stage burn, fairing off, orbit, and then 5 small satellites and an experiment pushed out into space. It was the second flight the company had ever attempted. No privately funded European rocket had reached orbit before. Across the North Sea in Shetland, Rocket Factory Augsburg's first rocket sat in pieces. A test on the pad in July turned up a problem, the company took the stages apart to look, and there is no new launch date. RFA is Isar's closest rival. Same country, same class of rocket, same customers. So what did Friday do to RFA? ## What the second runner got On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds on a track in Oxford. Nobody had gone under 4 before. An Australian named John Landy had been trying for 16 months. Between December 1952 and March 1954 he ran the mile in the 4:02s 6 times. Never under. He was one of the 3 men everyone expected to do it first. Then Bannister did it. 46 days later, in Turku, Finland, Landy ran 3:57.9. Under 4, and faster than Bannister had ever run. The usual telling says a mental barrier broke. Maybe. People who study running point at other things too: training was changing fast in those years, and pacing was getting organized. In Turku the pacemaker who pulled Landy through the first three quarters was Chris Chataway, one of the 2 men who had paced Bannister in Oxford 46 days earlier. Bannister's run did not change Landy's legs. It changed what everyone around Landy was willing to do. The coaches, the pacemakers, the meet organizers, the runner himself: all of them now knew the work would pay, so they finished it. The record was Bannister's for 46 days. The number of men who have run under 4 minutes stood at 2,349 in March 2026, by one running-statistics project's count, and it goes up every season. The record is zero-sum. Only one person holds it at a time. The club is not zero-sum at all. Every runner who joins makes the mile a bigger sport, and nobody already in the club loses anything by it. ## What Friday changed for RFA RFA has flown 0 times. It has no market share to lose. Isar can't take a customer off a manifest that doesn't exist yet. What moved on Friday is everything around RFA. Its investors learned that a private European rocket can reach orbit on its second try. Before Friday that was a hope. Now it's a data point, and the next round is easier to argue for. Its customers learned the same thing. The satellites on Friday's flight came from universities in Berlin, Trondheim, Vienna and Maribor, and from 2 small companies, all picked through a German space agency contest for cheap rides to orbit. Every satellite builder in Europe now has proof that a European ride works. Some of their plans will land on RFA. The spaceports learned it. Andøya has put a rocket in orbit, and every launch site in Europe now has a working example to point at. The engineers learned it. Anyone deciding whether to join a rocket company in Augsburg saw Friday too. And ESA had already committed. In August the agency signed 3 contracts in its European Launcher Challenge: €197.8 million for Isar, €186.9 million for RFA, and €158.9 million for PLD Space in Spain. Each one has the same condition: reach orbit before 2028. Friday made the whole program look like money well spent, and that protects RFA's contract as much as Isar's. None of that came out of Isar's pocket. Isar keeps September 5. It stays first, the way Bannister stays first. What it doesn't get to keep is the market to itself, and it was never going to. ## When the track fills up A track has 8 lanes. While the question is still “can anyone run this,” a second runner grows the sport. Once the question becomes “who wins on Saturday,” the second runner is the opponent. Markets do the same. In a young market, what customers doubt is whether the product is any good: whether a private European rocket can really put their satellite where they need it. Every proof anyone provides, yours or your rival's, does that convincing for you. Once customers believe the product works, the doubt moves to price and delivery date, and from then on a rival's win is your loss. European small launch is still in the first phase, and the second one is visible from here. The 3 ESA contracts come from a single pot. The best-paying institutional missions are few. Orbex, a Scottish company that was on ESA's shortlist in 2025, went into administration in February 2026 without ever flying. The club grows. Not every runner finishes. So the skill is telling which phase you're in. One test: listen to your own sales calls. If most of the call goes to proving the product works, you are in the first phase, and your competitor's press release is doing your job for you. If the call is about price and dates, the track is full, and it's time to race. The reflex is to race in both phases. It costs the years when a rival's win was free growth. ## The question for Monday Somewhere in your market, a competitor will announce something this month. The reflex is to read it as a loss. Before you do, check which number actually moved. Your customers' belief that the product works went up, and you did not pay for it. Your share of a market that is still being built is hard to lose, because it isn't there yet. Landy lost the record on May 6. What he got in return was 46 days, and a time he'd been chasing for a year and a half. What did the last rival win actually cost you? ## Frequently asked questions ### Did Isar Aerospace reach orbit? Yes. On September 5, 2026, the second Spectrum rocket lifted off from Andøya Spaceport in Norway at 22:12 local time, reached orbit, and deployed 5 small satellites and 1 experiment. It was the first privately funded European rocket to reach orbit. The first Spectrum, in March 2025, lost control about 30 seconds after liftoff. ### Is a competitor's success good news for a startup? In a young market, usually yes. Before customers believe the product works, every proof anyone provides does the convincing for all the companies in the market, and a competitor with no market share yet has nothing to lose to you. That changes once customers stop doubting the product and start comparing price and delivery. From then on, a rival's win is your loss. ### What happened after Roger Bannister ran the first 4-minute mile? Bannister ran 3:59.4 on May 6, 1954. John Landy, who had run in the 4:02s 6 times over the previous 16 months, ran 3:57.9 in Turku 46 days later, faster than Bannister had ever run. By March 2026, one running-statistics project counted 2,349 men who had run a mile under 4 minutes. ### Who else is building small rockets in Europe? Rocket Factory Augsburg in Germany has its first rocket at SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland, taken apart after a pad-test problem in July 2026, with no new launch date. PLD Space in Spain is building Miura 5. In August 2026 ESA signed European Launcher Challenge contracts with all 3: €197.8 million for Isar, €186.9 million for RFA, €158.9 million for PLD Space, each conditional on reaching orbit before 2028. Orbex in Scotland entered administration in February 2026 without flying. ### How do you know when competition starts to hurt? Listen to your sales calls. If most of a call goes to proving the product works, the market is still being built and a rival's proof helps you. If the call is about price and delivery date, customers already believe, and from there every deal a rival wins is one you did not. --- One thing that closes soon. I just earned my certification as a Wayfinder coach, and to mark it I am giving away my full 3 month coaching package to 1 person, free. It is the same package paying clients get: a session every 2 weeks, support in between by message or voice, and the method itself, so you can run it again on your own later. No homework. I read every application myself and they close on September 20. If a rival's announcement this month landed as a loss and you want to look at what it really cost, the application is here and takes about 5 minutes. Two companions: Europe Will Have a SpaceX Competitor by 2049 on why copying the leader is the expensive option, and SpaceX Is Boeing in 1929 on where a young market splits. If you want a first reading on which requirements you are running somebody else's version of, the Spec Check is 4 questions and takes about a minute.