Huelva, Spain, Oct 7 (EFE).- The Miura 1 early Saturday morning became the first 100 percent Spanish private rocket reach space.
Miura 1, a reusable space rocket developed by the Spanish company PLD Space, in Madrid, Spain on Dec. 11, 2021. EFE FILE/Emilio Naranjo
Designed and built by the Elche company PLD Space and named after a breed of fighting bulls, the reusable Miura 1 was launched at 2.19 am from the Médano del Loro military base in Huelva, in the south of the Spanish peninsula, following two aborted missions in May and June.
The launch took place at 2.19 am and minutes later, Sara Poveda, first employee of PLD Space, and Roberto Palacios, systems engineer of Miura 5 – the reusable suborbital rocket intended for launch in 2025 from French Guiana, excitedly reported the success of the mission.
“Vamos MIURA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” PLD Space wrote on X.
The company’s co-founder and CEO Raúl Torres said he was “tremendously happy” because “100 percent of the objectives in the ascent and re-entry have been covered, confirming that the Miura 1 is a vehicle capable of reaching space.”
After splashdown, a PLD Space team was to collect the rocket in the Atlantic Ocean. Two ships were to be situated in the planned landing area with specialist divers.
The main objective of this first flight, the plan for which began in Elche, Alicante, in 2011 with 3,000 euros, and now translates into three headquarters and more than 130 employees, is to verify the operation of key technologies in flight.
Among them, the thrust profile of the engine under flight conditions, the aerodynamic behavior of the launcher, the tracking of the nominal trajectory, the nominal behavior of all subsystems under real conditions and exposure to real space conditions.
This will allow the collection of the “largest volume of flight information possible in order to obtain data that will determine the validation and design of the technology, as well as potential improvements or changes in the development that will later be transferred and integrated into the MIURA 5 orbital launcher,” PLD said.
In addition, the mission will enable the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) to study microgravity conditions, collecting information necessary to carry out scientific experiments in future suborbital flights. EFE
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