Norway on Thursday joined the race to launch satellites from the European continent by opening a new spaceport on the island of Andoya, north of the Arctic Circle. Isar Aerospace stated that Andoya Spaceport “will be the first operational orbital spaceport in continental Europe to complete the construction of a launch pad.”

Nine months after the grand opening of the Erange Spaceport in neighboring Sweden, it was opened in a ceremony attended by Crown Prince Haakon of Norway. As tensions with Russia escalate and Europe is denied access to spaceports and launch pads, the site aims to help European countries strengthen their ability to launch small and medium-sized satellites into orbit.

The launch base, which will eventually feature several launch pads, was built by Norwegian public company Andoya Space in an area hitherto used only for the launch of suborbital scientific and experimental rockets.

Spectrum, a two-stage vehicle designed by German startup Isar Aerospace and capable of carrying up to one metric tonne, is planned to be the first rocket to be launched from the island, located near the idyllic Lofoten archipelago.

The date of the first launch is not yet known, but Isar Aerospace says it plans to send the first launch vehicle “as soon as possible” with the first test flight to Andi “later this year.”

“Over the last five years, we have produced a rocket that will help solve the most important bottleneck in the European space industry: sovereign and competitive access to space,” Isar Aerospace CEO Daniel Metzler said in a statement.

Its location in the Arctic makes the Andoy base ideal for launching small polar or sun-synchronous satellites; This means that the satellite passes any point on the planet’s surface at the same local solar time; This is a useful feature for observations and meteorology.

From Portugal’s Azores to Spain’s Andalusia via England, many European projects competed to be the first to be put into service.

In the UK, billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit, which uses Boeing 747s to launch rockets, went bankrupt this year after its attempt to launch the first rocket into space from British soil failed.