Spain set to launch three-storey-high Miura 1 rocket and join the space race

Spain will make its mark in the space race in the coming weeks when it launches the Miura 1 rocket, named after the Spanish bull breed.

Developed by Elche-based company PLD Space, which was founded in 2011 by Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú when they were both 23 years old, Miura 1 is as tall as a three-storey building and designed to lift loads of 250kg more than 150 km up in the air.

On its first suborbital flight, which will take place before the end of May, it will carry 100 kilograms of material from the German Centre for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity some 153km into the sky.

For security reasons, the exact launch date had not been made public, "but it will be in the next few weeks and we will broadcast the mission by streaming," Ezequiel Sánchez, CEO of PLD Space, told SUR. The rocket will be launched from the El Arenosillo Test Centre, near Mazagón in Andalucía's Huelva province.

The most critical moments of the mission will be the first 30 seconds, which was "when the rocket has to do an 80-degree orientation to begin parabolic flight".

On its return, the rocket would reach a speed of 2,700 kilometres per hour and then release a parachute upon slowing down to cushion its impact on the ocean.

It will also be the first reusable rocket in Europe to take flight.

"To date, of the sixty rockets that have been developed worldwide, only two companies have made them reusable: Space X and Blue Origin. Our rocket was conceived this way from the beginning. We will be able to recover 60% of the components of Miura 1," Sánchez said.

Last September, the Miura 1 passed a full qualification test which simulated all the conditions of a real launch.

This first mission would test 70% of the technologies which would then later be implemented on a larger orbital rocket, the Miura 5, which the PLD Space team are also developing.

The idea was to apply lessons learned from Miura 1 to the latter and launch it into space at the end of 2024 from Kourou in French Guiana.

Miura 5 will be 34.4 metres long and will be able to place around 540kg into low-Earth orbit.

"Currently, we have 50% of the team working full time on this new rocket and one third of its design has already been completed," Sánchez said.

The success of the launch will determine Spain’s place among the small number of territories capable of sending small satellites into space.