Morning edition··Coverage: since last night (~19:00 Berlin) / last ~12 hours
What matters
Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum reaches orbit from Andøya — first private orbital launch from continental Europe; Witkoff & Kushner head to Kyiv after three hours with Putin; Sachsen-Anhalt votes with AfD polling ~42%.
ESA / Space.com: Spectrum lifted off Andøya Spaceport (Norway) Sat 22:12 CEST (20:12 UTC) on mission “Onward and Upward” — second flight after the March 2025 pad-clearing failure
Company + EC: first privately developed rocket to reach orbit from continental Europe; payloads deployed to LEO (~2h after launch per Space.com / Isar)
Vehicle: two-stage, ~28 m / 2 m dia, ten engines, targeting up to ~1,000 kg to LEO; carried five CubeSats + one non-separable experiment (ESA Boost! / DLR microlauncher competition)
Why it matters —A German launcher startup just opened a real commercial path off European soil — big for Europe’s autonomous access-to-space push, not just a PR flight.
ABC / Kremlin: Putin met Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner ~3 hours Sat at the Kremlin; Ushakov called talks “highly useful” / candid — no breakthrough announced
White House official to ABC: envoys discussed “substantive plans for next steps” to be “announced in the coming weeks”; Kyiv meetings Sunday
Why it matters —Diplomacy moved from Moscow to Kyiv overnight — still a narrow capital pause and Russian territory demands, not a ceasefire.
MDR / tagesschau: ~1.7–1.8M eligible; polls open 08:00–18:00; AfD Landesverband rated gesichert rechtsextremistisch by state Verfassungsschutz
ARD Infratest dimap pre-election: AfD 42%, CDU 22% (historic low), Linke 11%, SPD 8%, Grüne 6%; BSW 4% / FDP 3% under threshold
Why it matters —First realistic shot since WWII at a Verfassungsschutz-flagged party leading a Land — national politics will read tonight’s numbers hard.
CNN / CENTCOM Sat: IRGC ballistic missiles toward a US carrier + destroyer — ships evaded; no US casualties reported
Response: permanently disabled M/T Downy (near Kharg) and M/T Stark 1 (near Jask); destroyed unladen M/T Kylo (aka Noxen) in the Gulf of Oman after abandon-ship warnings
Why it matters —Another turn in the Hormuz shipping fight — economic hits on Iran’s tanker fleet instead of (or alongside) shore targets.
