The Orbital Index

Fram2 launches. Humanity’s first crewed LEO circumpolar orbital mission launched late Monday evening. Onboard was an international crew of four (flying under the Norwegian, German, Australian, and Maltese flags), set to spend 3-5 days orbiting the Earth over both poles at a 90.01° inclination. (The highest crewed inclination was previously 65°, set by Soviet Vostok 6 in 1963—also the first mission to take a woman to space.) Fram2 took off uneventfully with its booster returning to a drone ship south of Florida’s space coast due to the mission’s close-to-due-south flight path. The mission’s Dragon carries a nose-cupola viewing window, and its crew will conduct 22 science experiments focused primarily on human spaceflight research, including performing blood flow restriction exercises and growing oyster mushrooms in microgravity for the first time. Fram2, paid for and commanded by crypto-billionaire Chun Wang (who is Chinese-born, but resides in Svalbard and has purchased citizenship from both Saint Kitts & Nevis and Malta, the latter of which is the flag he is flying under), will eventually splash down at one of SpaceX’s new West Coast landing areas.

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Spectrum starts well; ends in the Norwegian Sea. Munich-headquartered Isar Aerospace launched its first orbital rocket, Spectrum, this week, the first commercial orbital launch attempt from a pad in Western Europe. The butane-liquid oxygen (butalox?) fueled rocket lifted off in front of the dramatic backdrop of Andøya Island and the Norwegian Sea. All seemed well for the first 10-15 seconds of flight, only to have the rocket begin wobbling, eventually losing attitude control completely after the call out to pitch down range. This may suggest a GNC-related failure vs a problem with the propulsion systems. Spectrum had a simple flight termination system (FTS) that shut down the engines and allowed the booster to tumble (mostly) harmlessly into the water just off the coast from the launch pad—the still very full fuel tanks exploded on contact with the sea, creating an impressive mushroom cloud (fantastic drone video). Isar stated that no injuries occurred, nor was there significant damage to the launch facility. Despite the outcome, leadership shared that the mission achieved all its success criteria and generated a large amount of useful data, much like Falcon 1’s first flight. We believe this is a positive first step towards orbit. Spectrum is a two-stage, 28-meter-tall rocket designed to carry one metric ton to LEO and is the first in a new crop of commercial launch efforts in Europe. The company already has two more rockets in manufacturing, but did not share a potential date for their next attempt.

Regional space activities (part III): Southeast Asia 🌏. In orbit, there are about 65 satellites owned by seven of the 11 countries in Southeast Asia. Indonesia initially formed the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) in 1963, which was later consumed by research-focused BRIN, and then in 2022, the country established the Indonesian Space Agency (INASA), mostly focused on space policy. To date, no astronaut from Indonesia has made it to space despite the 1985 selection of Pratiwi Sudarmono as a payload specialist for NASA’s Space Shuttle mission STS-61-H, which was eventually canceled after the Challenger disaster. Indonesia, as an archipelago of 17,508 islands, offers multiple equatorial flight paths over low-to-no population zones. There have been multiple proposals to construct a spaceport on 500 hectares of government land on Biak Island, and the Stasiun Peluncuran Roket site has been used for sounding rocket flights and engine tests since 1965. Indonesia has sought to attract SpaceX as well as several space-faring nations; however, foreign investment has not been secured. In 2024, BRIN proposed a 2045 space roadmap to encourage the development of domestic space technology. Next, we have Singapore, which, since 2013, has been operating the Office for Space Technology & Industry Singapore (OSTIn), which received funding of S$150 million in 2022 and S$60 million in 2025 for its Space Technology Development Programme. Perhaps most significant is Singapore’s burgeoning commercial space sector with more than 50 domestic companies employing 2,000 professionals. Singapore is also a member of the Artemis Accords, the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), and the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). Thailand became the first nation with agencies to join both the Artemis Accords, signed by the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), and China’s International Lunar Research Station, signed by the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (NARIT). (UAE signed the Artemis Accords as a country in 2020, while one of its research labs signed on to ILRS in 2023.) Thailand’s first lunar payload will be a space weather monitoring device planned for launch on the Chinese Chang’e 7 orbiter next year. In Malaysia, the Malaysia Space Agency (MYSA), formed in 2019, is the successor to the 2002-founded Malaysian National Space Agency (ANGKASA). Malaysia currently operates nine satellites and supports many space-science education programs. Similar to neighboring Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia have also investigated building domestic launch sites. The Philippines established its own dedicated space agency in 2019, the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), and has now launched 11 small satellites. The Vietnam National Space Center (VNSC) has been working since 2011 on national space and satellite projects. Pham Tuan flew on the Salyut 6 mission in 1980 and became Vietnam’s first astronaut. Laos has one satellite in orbit (LaoSat-1), while Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, and Myanmar have none so far (well, Myanmar launched its first satellite via a Japanese university partnership in 2020, but it was seized by Japan after the 2021 coup). We hope to see growing space activity in the region in the years ahead. — Part I of this series, focused on South America, ran in Issue № 284, and Part II, on Africa, ran in February in Issue № 306.

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