German sea-launch rocket project looks beyond North Sea

Plans to launch a German rocket from a floating offshore platform are expanding beyond the North Sea, with additional potential launch sites under consideration, aerospace company OHB said on Wednesday.

"The whole of the Atlantic is certainly being considered," OHB chief executive Marco Fuchs told reporters, adding that a launch near the equator was also a possibility.

Satellite maker OHB was a member of the German Offshore Spaceport Alliance, a consortium of companies that aimed to launch small rockets from a specially equipped vessel at sea. Although the consortium has since been dissolved, the former partners plan to continue supporting the project.

The initial goal is to carry out a suborbital demonstration mission, in which the rocket would not reach Earth's orbit. 

The first launch had been planned from the so-called "duck's beak," a remote wedge-shaped section of Germany's exclusive economic zone in the central North Sea.

But the project has faced repeated delays. Most recently, the launch was postponed because required regulatory documents had not been completed, according to media reports.

OHB says the mission has long been technically ready to proceed, although it remains unclear when the first launch will take place.