Author Topic: Germany's Spaceport: German Offshore Spaceport Alliance (Read 6785 times)

moontomars · « **on:** 02/27/2023 08:18 am »

The German Offshore Spaceport Alliance (GOSA) is currently planning and developing a mobile launch site for orbital vehicles in the North Sea. With ambitious goals of an initial test launch in 2023, the GOSA project has not yet been covered here on NASASpaceflight, so I thought I'd give it a go.

GOSA is developing a mobile, vertical rocket launch platform (“spaceport”) for Germany. It will be a mobile launch site using a large ship which launches rockets from the north-western most point of Germany’s EEZ in the North Sea. The platform supports launches for ca. 1 ton of payload (polar/SSO) and is planned to go up to 25 launches per year. The location of the launches can be seen here:

Each launch operation would take around 10 days at most, with potential 250 days per year for launch windows:

GOSA is backed primarily by OHB SE, one of Germany’s largest space corporations, and also the company behind Rocket Factory Augsburg, one of the three larger German newspace companies. Further companies supporting GOSA include MediaMobil (Satellite communication), Tractebel DOC (offshore capability) and Harren & Partner (vessel/shipping). GOSA is requesting funding from the federal government, with the initial feasibility study from August 2020 estimating €22 to €30 million for the project. Launch prices could start at €600,000 per launch for launch companies.

This is a project that has been in the works for several years, with a larger ceremony at the federal level in September 2021, signing MoUs with launchers such as Skyrora, RFA, HyImpulse Technologies and others, two weeks before the elections, which presumably set back the project quite a bit, as the new coalition was not as excited about the project in the beginning.

Since then, GOSA has been working on the proposal and has increased PR and political involvement in the last weeks and months. As recently as December 2022, they told a local newspaper that they're still planning the first launch for 2023, though how and especially which rocket remains very much open.

A video animation of how a launch operation could work can be found here:

As always, I've included a lot more background information, including Germany's spaceport history, the funding and financial models for GOSA as well as a lot more information on the launch platform in my deeper analysis here:
https://moontomars.space/space-port/german-offshore-spaceport-alliance/

PM3 · « **Reply #1 on:** 02/27/2023 09:26 am »

I started a German Wikipedia article on GOSA two years ago:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Offshore_Spaceport_Alliance
https://de-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/German_Offshore_Spaceport_Alliance?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de

Thanks for your more detailed and up-to-date report!

PM3 · « **Reply #2 on:** 10/19/2023 01:15 pm »

First launch will be a Dutch suborbital rocket by T-Minus, scheduled for April 2024:

Quote

Im April 2024 soll im Rahmen einer Demo-Mission erstmals eine Rakete der niederländischen Firma T-Minus von einer mobilen Startplattform der "German-Offshore Spaceport Alliance" (GOSA) in der Nordsee starten. Das teilte Sabine von der Recke, Mitglied der GOSA-Geschäftsführung, am Mittwoch auf dem BDI-Weltraumkongress in Berlin mit.
...
Die Demo-Kampagne soll zunächst etwa zwei Wochen laufen. In dieser Zeit ist der Start von bis zu vier Raketen mit einer maximalen Länge von sieben Metern und einer Flughöhe von bis zu 50 Kilometer geplant.

In April 2024, a rocket of the Dutch company T-Minus is scheduled to launch for the first time from a mobile launch platform of the "German-Offshore Spaceport Alliance" (GOSA) in the North Sea as a demo mission. Sabine von der Recke, a member of the GOSA management, announced this on Wednesday at the BDI Space Congress in Berlin.

The demo campaign will initially run for around two weeks. During this time, up to four rockets with a maximum length of seven meters and a flight altitude of up to 50 kilometers are planned to be launched.

https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/Von-der-deutschen-Nordsee-ins-All-Erste-Rakete-soll-2024-starten,rakete392.html

Nico from the Hague · « **Reply #3 on:** 04/23/2024 08:45 pm »

The first demo launch has been postponed to june. One t-minus SDART rocket (42km) and three rockets with a lower apogees are planned to be launched from a barge. Legal and perhaps political challenges must be quite big with this kind of launch.