Airbus Backs a New Space Startup

The ranks of companies lining up to launch rockets into space -- and challenge incumbent rocket launchers United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and SpaceX -- just keep growing and growing. Today we'll introduce you to another German company -- and this one makes rockets in its own right: Isar Aerospace is its name, and small rockets are its game. As Britain's Financial Times reported last month, Gilching, Germany-based Isar has just begun production of a new rocket called "Spectrum" that will be the "first privately built rocket" in Germany, marking that nation's move to "join the commercial space race."