Norway on Thursday joined the race to launch satellites from the European continent by inaugurating a new spaceport on the island of Andoya, north of the Arctic Circle.

Isar Aerospace said the "Andoya Spaceport" was to "become the first operational orbital spaceport in continental Europe to finalize the construction of the launch site."

It was inaugurated at a ceremony attended by Norway's Crown Prince Haakon nine months after the inauguration of the Esrange spaceport in neighboring Sweden.

As tensions have grown with Russia, depriving Europe of access to its cosmodromes and launchpads, the site seeks to help European countries strengthen their own capacity for putting small and medium-sized satellites into orbit.

The launch base, which eventually will have several launch pads, was built by Norwegian public company Andoya Space, on a site which until now has only been used for firing suborbital scientific experiment rockets.

Spectrum, a two-stage craft capable of carrying up to one metric ton and developed by the German start-up Isar Aerospace, is scheduled to be the first rocket to be launched from island which is located near the idyllic Lofoten archipelago.