Isar Aerospace CEO says it could overtake SpaceX

Germany's Isar Aerospace could one day move ahead of Elon Musk's SpaceX, chief executive Daniel Metzler said on Tuesday, pointing to strong demand for launches and rising interest from European military clients.

Speaking at a conference organised by the SZ newspaper, Metzler said SpaceX was founded in 2002 and that he would not rule out Isar being further ahead over the next 18 years.

Isar became in September the first privately financed European company to get a rocket into orbit. Europe is looking to competition between Isar and other companies, including Rocket Factory Augsburg, to lower satellite launch costs and support access to space for sectors including telecommunications and defence.

Metzler said launch capacity, rather than demand, was now the main bottleneck. He said Isar was 15 times oversubscribed for 2028 launches, with European governments increasingly preferring European providers for defence satellites.

He said the company's inquiries had changed from 85 percent commercial and 15 percent military about 18 months ago to the reverse ratio now.

Isar is working on reusable rockets to raise capacity and reduce launch costs. Metzler said the company planned to take initial measurements on its next launch to assess re-entry of the rocket's first stage, and to begin flying hardware designed for reusability over the next three or four flights.