Spain’s PLD Space successfully launched the Miura 1 suborbital rocket. Although it did not reach its planned altitude, the rocket completed its first test flight, and PLD Space hopes to learn valuable lessons from this launch in its Miura 5 launches
Now the Spanish company PLD Space has its own successful launch under its belt. On October 6, the Miura 1 suborbital rocket launched from the El Arenacillo site at the National Institute of Aerospace Technology in Huelva (Spain).
The planned duration of the mission was 12 minutes, and the maximum altitude was 80 kilometers above the surface of the Earth, which is the boundary of space as defined by NASA and the US Military (however, not all organizations recognize this – some accept the Karman line, which is at an altitude of 100 kilometers). ).
Miura 1, named after a species of fighting bull, failed to reach its intended altitude, peaking at about 47 kilometers, according to mission telemetry broadcasts. However, the rocket performed well enough for its first test flight.
On its first test flight, Miura 1 carried as its payload an experiment from the German Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity aimed at studying microgravity conditions during flight. The company also included photos of its employees on board to mark the significant moment.
Miura 1 is a single-stage rocket with a height of 12.5 meters. It can launch about 100 kilograms of payload into suborbital space on short-term flights. This is the first European rocket that is designed for reuse. PLD Space hopes to learn valuable lessons from its test flight to apply to future Miura 1 launches and the development of the Miura 5 rocket, the company’s next orbital rocket equipped with a reusable first stage.
According to the plan, Miura 5 will be launched in 2024-2025 from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
This launch was not the first attempt for the Miura 1 rocket. The first attempt on June 17 was canceled 0.2 seconds before liftoff when software determined that one of the cables connecting the rocket to the launch tower had not disconnected in time. PLD Space’s investigation revealed that the cable was in fact disconnected, but with a delay of 0.1 seconds compared to plan.
