She flew safely on Saturday October 7 at 2:19 a.m. from Andalusia in southern Spain. After several postponements, Miura-1, prototype of the start-up PLD Space, became the first private Spanish rocket to take off into space. This inaugural firing, carried out from a military base in the province of Huelva and broadcast live, took place “successfully” and made it possible to achieve “all the technical objectives” sought, the company assured in a press release.
The 2.5-ton rocket rose to its peak 46 kilometers above the Gulf of Cádiz, high enough to move away from the atmosphere but not high enough to orbit the Earth. After five minutes of flight, it finished its journey as expected in the Atlantic Ocean, where the company planned to send a team to recover the device.
“This launch is the fruit of more than twelve years of work,” underlined the co-founder and CEO of PLD Space, Raul Torres, hailing a “historic” shot. With this flight, “Spain becomes the tenth country in the world to have a direct space capability,” insists the company.
70% reused components
The launch of Miura-1, a twelve-meter-high rocket, was suspended for the first time on May 31 due to strong wind gusts at altitude, then a second time on June 17, due to a problem on the one of the energy supply pipes. To comply with forest fire prevention regulations, in a context of high temperatures and severe drought, PLD Space finally announced the postponement of this suborbital flight, the first in the history of Spain, until the fall. .
The Miura-1 rocket, which will undergo a second flight, is to be used to gather as much information as possible for the development of Miura-5, a two-stage, 35-meter-high mini-launch vehicle designed to place in orbit satellites weighing less than 500 kilos, according to PLD Space. Under an agreement signed with the French National Center for Space Studies (CNES), this mini-launcher will take off from the Kourou Space Center, in French Guiana, and no longer from Huelva. According to the company, 70% of the components developed for Miura-1 will be used for Miura-5.
The start-up, which is preparing to move to an industrial scale with a factory capable of producing fifty engines per year, and a second capable of manufacturing five to six rockets per year, plans two demonstration flights in 2025 and an entry into service commercial the following year. This is a “reasonable” timetable, Raul Verdu, another co-founder of PLD Space, recently explained to Agence France-Presse. “We don’t want to underestimate the challenges of launching a satellite” because “if you get to market and start failing, you disappear,” he explained.
In the longer term, the start-up intends to make Miura-5 reusable, by recovering the main stage of the rocket from the ocean, the fall of which will be slowed by a parachute. The company designs these developments with this idea in mind but does not make it a prerequisite.
A potential order book of 350 million euros
To ensure this growth, PLD Space is counting on the support of public authorities, Spain having acquired its own space agency in April, based in Seville, to assert itself in this sector and no longer be satisfied with just developed programs. via the European Space Agency (ESA).
The start-up, created in 2011, won a grant of 40 million euros as part of the post-Covid mega-recovery plan. It specifies that it has a potential order book of 350 million euros, combining commercial clients and institutional missions.
Like her, several European start-ups, including the German Isar Aerospace and the French Latitude, have launched into the race for mini-space launchers in recent years, in order to respond to the fast-growing market for putting microsatellites into orbit. . Compared to large launchers like the Falcon 9 (SpaceX) or Ariane 6 (ArianeGroup), these small rockets offer flexibility of use: carrying a single satellite, they can be fired quickly to respond to an urgent need, replace a failing satellite or complete a constellation.
