This is the Miura 1, the first rocket 100% ‘made in Spain’ whose launch is scheduled for the end of the year

They have already tested it for 20 seconds to check that nothing fails and the next thing will be two minutes. They are the last tests to launch the first 100% spanish rocketnamed as miura 1. A name that, according to its developers, “symbolizes strength and ‘brand Spain’ at an international level”.

They made it in PLD Space, a pioneering company from Elche in Europe, which, 10 years later, is about to launch it. The rocket, they explain, measures 12.7 meters, weighs about 2.5 tons and will reach an altitude of 120 kilometers.

The miura 5 is another version of greater capacity, which will reach orbit in 2024. In this case, it measures 30 meters and with it, they point out from the company, “commercial activity starts”. And it is that these rockets cover a market niche: carry cargo into spacelike little satellites.

In this sense, Raúl Verdú, Director of Operations at PLD Space, explains that “there are more and more small satellite companies that need to launch small satellites into space and there are no rockets available.” For his part, the CEO and co-founder of the company, Raúl Torres, specifies that his is “a transport company whose purpose is, instead of transporting merchandise on Earth, it is transport goods from Earth to space“.

Its micro launchers are programmed to go up, drop the merchandise and return to Earth to be recovered and reused, according to Verdú, who highlights its objective of “being environmentally sustainable”. “We want to use the rockets more than once and that they are not lost at the bottom of the ocean”, he sums up.

And it is that, according to Torres, “reusing the rocket impacts the cost“, which can be reduced by “being able to amortize it in more time”. In addition, he adds, “you can put it on the launch pad in less time than building it from scratch and therefore the service can also be faster”.

More than 100 people work for launch the rocket from Huelva at the end of the year. The executive president of the company, Ezequiel Sánchez, emphasizes that this will allow include Spain “within that club of countries that have access to space“.

All It started as a teenage dream in a workshop of plumbing “Instead of taking the pay that our parents gave us and going to the movies, we went to Leroy Merlin and bought material,” recalls Verdú, while Torres recalls how the Civil Guard once came to his house “because he bought products online to make explosives” in order to put them in the engine. Now, it is already a reality that will soon leave for space.