The Spanish company PLD Space plans to carry out its first orbital launch, with the Miura 5, from the European spaceport of Kurú, in French Guiana, “in two years”, that is, 2025, after the successful launch of the Miura 1 from Huelva , the first launch of a completely private European rocket, which took place earlier this month.
This Friday, the company’s managers presented an assessment of this first launch that took place at the El Arenosillo facilities, in Moguer, and which they considered “a complete success.” And this despite the fact that the launcher could not be recovered, after eight hours of searching, and ended up being lost sunk in the sea. Recovering it “was not a priority objective,” they considered.
«When we talk about success we say it with a very clear conscience. “It was not a priority objective to recover the rocket,” said the executive president of PLD Space, Ezequiel Sánchez, highlighting that, throughout history, there have been some 6,500 rocket launches and “around 100 have been recovered and the companies “Those who have recovered it have done so between the fifth and tenth launch.”
With this first experience “we have learned to launch rockets,” said the company’s co-founder, CEO and launch director, Raúl Torres, at a press conference. The Miura 1 is the first private rocket to be launched in Europe and is developed entirely in Spain. The purpose of this rocket was to collect as much information as possible regarding design, process and technology aspects, which will later be used in the construction of the Miura 5, currently under development.
For the company’s executive president, the launch of Miura 1, which has had a total cost of 30 million euros and whose data will allow adjustment of the aerodynamic model that will be used in the Miura 5 rocket and which will be ready for launch “in two years”, is a “historical milestone, a project with a critical impact on a need within the context of European competitiveness” and that positions Spain as the tenth country with launch capacity.