The company from Elche (Alicante) PLD Space will launch this Wednesday the technological demonstrator Miura 1, in which it will be the launch of the first private rocket in Europe. They will do it from El Arenosillo Experimentation Center, at the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), in Huelva.
Specific, takeoff will take place this Wednesday, May 31 at 5:30 a.m., can be followed live from the company Youtube account and will be presented by Sara Poveda, first employee of PLD Space; and by Roberto Palacios, Miura 5 systems engineer, as indicated by the company from Elche in a statement.
The objective
The The mission of this first experimental flight with the Miura 1 aims to gather the “greatest volume of information possible” for the validation of the design, technology and processes, which will later be transferred and integrated into the Miura 5 orbital launcher. With the Miura 5 rocket, they do hope to be the first company in Spain to launch small satellites on commercial flights into space.
The essays
In Huelva, since the arrival of the Miura 1, they have carried out “numerous tests” unitary and combined to guarantee the “correct operation” of the launcher, the launch infrastructure and the ground segment.
These tests have ranged from unit tests of a specific subsystem or specific equipment, to combined chronology tests to validate the sequence in an integral way, such as the ‘Wet Dress Rehearsal’ (WDR) test of the stage or its static test.
The launch
PLD Space has emphasized that “every second that Miura 1 is in the air, it will be a second of success and a milestone”. Among the main objectives of this mission, he stressed that it is to collect “as much flight data as possible.” “This fact will be very important to determine potential improvements or changes for the future Miura 5 orbital launcher,” he insisted.
In addition, the caster will try to achieve microgravity conditions for payloads that travel on board, something that will happen after the MECO event (engine shutdown) and the beginning of the ballistic flight phase.
This first mission will allow PLD Space check the operation of “key” technologies in flight, something that to date they have not been able to do. Specifically, they will analyze the thrust profile of the engine in flight conditions; the aerodynamic behavior of the launcher; nominal trajectory tracking; the nominal behavior of all subsystems under real conditions; and exposure to real space conditions.
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