Spain's first private suborbital launcher is now a reality. Its name is Miura 1 and, just like the bulls of the prestigious bull-breeding bull-ranch, its presentation in society is taking place in the bullring of Madrid, where it can be seen during the weekend of 12-15 November and at the timetable shown at the end of the text.
The Miura 1 is a project of the company PLD Space, an initiative born from the impulse of two young entrepreneurs, Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú, who in 2011 founded the company with the audacity of wanting to make the first nationally produced space transport vehicle a reality. Today, their dream and the process of its development can be seen on the esplanade in front of the National Museum of Natural Sciences, next to the Paseo de la Castellana, in the heart of Madrid.
Miura 1 is stationed there for the rest of the weekend, before returning to Teruel airport, where it will undergo a 5-month campaign of combined qualification tests to confirm that all its on-board equipment is suitable for its inaugural take-off, known as "TestFlight-1", scheduled for the end of 2022.
Once it has passed the tests at the integral test bench in Teruel, it will leave for the "El Arenosillo" Experimentation Centre (CEDEA), on the coast of Huelva, belonging to the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), a facility equipped to fire and evaluate rockets, missiles and unmanned aircraft. There, the compatibility of the Miura 1 with ground control and monitoring infrastructures will be verified. Once qualified for flight by INTA, it will take off from CEDEA. After reaching 150 kilometres, it will return to the ground and land over the Atlantic, supported by two parachutes, some 70 kilometres off the coast of Huelva.
In parallel to the Miura 1 project, PLD Space is working on the development of the Miura 5 project. The Miura 1 is a recoverable suborbital micro launcher demonstrator, capable of placing objects in space, but not in orbit around the Earth. Weighing around 2,550 kilos, it consists of a single stage 12.45 metres high and 0.7 metres in diameter, is powered by a single liquid-fuelled rocket engine and can fly to a maximum altitude of 150 kilometres and then drop a payload of about 100 kilos.
The Miura 5, on the other hand, is much larger, has greater capabilities and is designed to be the first Spanish commercial recoverable launcher. Made up of two stages, its height is 26 metres, its diameter is 1.8 metres and it has five rocket engines, each one four times more powerful than the Miura 1.
The five engines allow it to climb to an altitude of around 500 kilometres, at which altitude it can orbit small satellites weighing up to 500 kilos and carry out experiments in microgravity. It will take off in 2024 from French Guiana, where the French Space Agency "is preparing a launch ramp on the basis of one already used for out-of-use rockets", said Raúl Torres.
PLD has achieved a broad synergy between the two rockets, so that "the Miura 5 uses 70 percent of the technology developed for the Miura 1", says Raúl Torres, PLD's chief executive officer. In the opinion of the president, Ezequiel Sánchez, there is a possibility that Spain could become "the fourteenth country with an autonomous capacity to access space". This will be a reality provided that the Miura 1 and Miura 5 are successful in a continuous series of launches.
In addition, they will have to demonstrate that they are reliable space launchers, capable of competing on the international market in terms of cost and payload capacity. Others like them have already made their first qualification flights or are under development in Europe and elsewhere.
In order to finalise the fine-tuning of the Miura 1 and 5 projects, Ezequiel Sanchez anticipated that "PLD needs to grow". Throughout 2022 we have to "increase the workforce by more than a hundred people", which means "more than doubling" the company's current number of professionals. This increase means hiring engineers and also vocational training technicians "from specialities such as mechanisation and electronics", emphasises Raúl Torres.
Except for the actual liftoff, the dynamic validation tests of Miura 1 and Miura 5 are now complete. The at-sea recovery validation of the Miura 5 first stage took place in April 2019 in front of ESA technicians. A CH-47D Chinook helicopter from the Transport Helicopter Battalion V (BHELTRA V) of the Spanish Army Airmobile Forces (FAMET) successfully dropped a full-size demonstrator from 16,500 feet (5 kilometres) off the town of Mazagón.
PLD's headquarters are in Elche (Alicante), with technical facilities in Teruel, Huelva and French Guiana. The company has already raised more than 36 million euros in financing to develop its two projects. Private investors include Spanish aerospace companies such as GMV and Aciturri, and public investors include the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), ESA and the European Commission.
The launch of the MIURA 1 space rocket was attended by the Director General of the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), Lieutenant General José María Salom, and the Director of Space, Large Installations and Dual Programmes of the CDTI, Juan Carlos Cortés. They were joined by Amparo Martínez Bonafé, Director General of Industry of the Generalitat Valenciana; Jorge Alarte, representative of the regional institution in Madrid; and the mayors of Elche and Teruel, Carlos González Serna and Emma Buj, respectively.
Access to see the Miura 1 and to visit the exhibition that accompanies it on the esplanade in front of the National Museum of Natural Sciences, next to Paseo de la Castellana, in the centre of Madrid, is free of charge from 15:00 hours on Friday, 12th November. On Saturday, 13 November, the exhibition will be open from 10:00 to 20:00. And on Sunday, 14 November, the opening hours will be from 10:00 to 18:00.