The Munich-based company Isar Aerospace said in a statement it had cancelled Monday's flight "due to unfavourable winds" and that it was working to find a new launch date.
A re-scheduled launch would be the first flight of an orbital launch vehicle from the European continent, excluding Russia.
It would also be Europe's first flight financed almost exclusively by private actors.
Measuring 28 metres (92 feet) high and two metres in diameter, with a payload capacity of one tonne, the Spectrum will not carry any cargo on its first launch, nor is it expected to reach orbit.
"Every second we fly is good, because we collect data and experience. Thirty seconds would already be a great success," said Daniel Metzler, co-founder and chief executive of Isar Aerospace.
"We do not expect to reach orbit with this test. In fact, no company has yet managed to put its first orbital launch vehicle into orbit," he said ahead of the planned launch attempt.
Europe has had no access to Russian space stations and launchers since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Its space industry has also seen delays in the development of the Ariane 6 rocket and the suspension of the European Vega-C satellite launcher after an accident.
It wasn't until March 6, when the first commercial flight of an Ariane 6 rocket took off from Kourou in French Guyana, that Europe was able to regain its own space independence after several months without its own access to space.
While the US already has giants such as Musk's SpaceX and Blue Origin, "New Space" -- commercial space activities driven by private companies -- is still in its infancy in Europe.
The Spectrum launch "is the first real and serious attempt in Europe to have a New Space launcher," said Maxime Puteaux, a consultant at Novaspace.
- Space race -
Small launchers like the Spectrum can be used to put miniature satellites -- used for Earth observation or internet coverage, for instance -- into orbit.
In addition to Isar Aerospace, Europe is home to Germany's HyImpulse and Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), French groups Latitude and MaiaSpace and Spain's PLD Space, all racing to establish themselves as key players in the sector.
"The rise of these new actors and new European launch services is part of a common objective: to guarantee independent and sovereign access to space. Their role is expected to strengthen in the coming years," Toni Tolker-Nielsen, director of Space Transportation at the European Space Agency (ESA), told AFP.
At the same time, a number of spaceport projects have emerged across Europe, from the Portuguese Azores to the British Shetland Islands, Norway's Andoya and Esrange in neighbouring Sweden, many of them hoping to become the first to launch.
In Britain, billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit shut down operations after a 2023 failed attempt to launch the first rocket into orbit from a spaceport in Cornwall -- not from a launcher but from a Boeing 747.
The Spectrum flight is expected to be the first vertical launch of an orbital vehicle on the European continent, where launches have until now involved suborbital rockets.
Founded in 2018, Isar Aerospace boasts that it developed its two-stage launcher almost entirely in-house.
The company has already signed a contract with the Norwegian space agency to put two maritime surveillance satellites into orbit by 2028.
The Andoya Spaceport, which presents itself as "the first operational spaceport in continental Europe", meanwhile says its location in the Arctic is ideal for launching polar and so-called sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) satellites.
phy/po/jm
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