Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket

Isar Aerospace's first Spectrum rocket on the pad at Andøya Spaceport ahead of its upcoming launch. Credit: Isar Aerospace

Via The Silicon Graybeard

Andøya has appeared here several times before.

Orion Intercept

June 3, 2013, French Mirage intercepts a Russian Ilyushin Il-20 "Coot-A" ELINT over the Baltic Sea. 

The Russians and the Europeans are always playing cat and mouse games with surveillance aircraft. Sometimes they get pretty close to each other.

Norwegian AF P-3B Orion. Compare tip of lower left blade of closest prop with tip of upper right blade.

    On the 13th of September 1987 a Norwegian AF P-3B Orion flying over the Barents Sea was intercepted by an Soviet Su-27 flown by Vasiliy Tsymbal at an altitude of 13,000 feet. The Orion was from Andøya Air Base, the Su-27 was from Kilip-Yavr Air Base.
    The Orion is an American four engine propeller driven aircraft used for electronic surveillance and anti-submarine operations. The Su-27 is a Russian supersonic jet fighter. At 13,000 feet, the air is breathable, barely. AOPA says "Sure, everyone knows that you have to use supplemental oxygen if you fly more than 30 minutes at cabin pressure altitudes of 12,500 feet or higher. That at cabin altitudes above 14,000 feet pilots must use oxygen at all times."

Model of Su-27 Flanker - 'Red 36' - as flown by Lt Vasily Tsymbal by Flankerman
Note the damaged tip of the left tail fin.

    Tsymbal made a couple of close passes without incident. The third time he went below the Orion. When he pulled away, the tip of one of his two vertical stabilizers hit the prop of the Orion's outboard starboard engine, breaking an eleven centimeter long piece off of the tip of one of the blades. The broken piece punched a hole in the Orion's fuselage which caused it to lose pressurization.
    None of the crew were injured and the Orion made it safely back to Banak Air Base.

Brazilian Orion

    Since this was an outboard engine it was a real fluke that the piece that broke off hit the fuselage. If it was going to hit the plane it would have been much more likely for it to hit the inboard engine, but it would have been much more likely to fly off and not hit anything at all.
    When the prop lost the tip of one blade it would have become unbalanced and started vibrating horribly. Fortunately the crew was able to shut the engine down and feather the prop, otherwise things could have gotten much worse.

Andøya Air Base (Blue), Banak Air Base (Orange), both in Norway, and Kilp-Yavr Air Base (Red) in Russia. The black, wavy line is an approximation of the Arctic Circle.

Andøya has shown up in this blog more times than I expected.

Update July 2020 replaced embedded map because Google lost it. Bad Google.

Royal Norwegian Air Force - Lofoten

 
Flying around the North Coast of Norway, just down the road from the Andøya Rocket Range and the largest Medium Frequency Radar Installation in Europe.

Lofoten Norway

along with other places mentioned in the video.

Update July 2021 replaced missing map with image from Google Earth image link.

What Watt? Watson-Watt!

Atmospheric Dynamics Group (ADG) Medium Frequency (MF) Radar, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Up on Andøya Island in Northern Norway, near the Andøya Rocket Range, is a MF (Medium Frequency) Radar installation, the largest in Europe. MF Radar seems to be mostly used for atmospheric research and/or weather prediction. I'm always interested in big government projects, so I spent some time looking for pictures of such a device, but I didn't find much. Basically you have a series of tall, thin, antennae towers. You can see shadows on satellite images, but that's about it. So now I'm reading up on radar and I find that Sir Robert Watson-Watt developed the first pulsed radar system in Great Britain in 1935. Watson-Watt? Would that be Watt, son of Watt? Yes it would:

Born in Brechin, Angus, Scotland,on the 13 April 1892 Watson-Watt (the hyphenated name is used herein for consistency, although this was not adopted until he was knighted in 1942) was a descendant of James Watt, the famous engineer and inventor of the practical steam engine.

Knighted for his work on radar.

SCRAMSPACE scramjet

The USA's X-51A WaveRider has got some competition from Australia. Unlike the crap we get from NASA about New York to London in 15 seconds, these guys are talking about a space launch vehicle. The glib narrator wants his super-sonic airliner, but nobody else mentions it.
       They are planning a September launch from the Andøya Rocket Range in Norway, 200 miles North of the Arctic Circle, and 500 miles from Kristiansund, site of younger son's oil field adventure. There is also an airbase in Andøya. Back in 1982 an SR-71 had to divert there.