Spain rocket launch could be turning point for European spaceflight - Interesting Engineering (2024)

Europe’s commercial space age is officially off the mark.

Spanish rocket startup PLD successfully launched its suborbital Miura 1 rocket from the El Arenosillo Test Center at the National Institute of Aerospace Technology in Huelva, Spain, on October 7 at 02:19 am local time.

Though the suborbital Miura 1 launch vehicle didn’t quite reach the intended altitude and the rocket wasn’t recovered, PLD Space said the launch was a resounding success and “just the start of our journey.”

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It also claims the launch constitutes the first time a private rocket has lifted off from Europe.

The launch of Miura 1

The Miura 1 rocket, named after a breed of fighting bull, reached an altitude of 46 km before it descended and splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean with the aid of a parachute.

The launch from Southern Spain constitutes the first launch of one of Europe’s new private rocket companies, meaning it could go down as the first private rocket launch from European soil.

Miura 1 was designed to be reusable, though PLD Space CEO Raúl Torres explained in an X (formerly Twitter) thread in Spanish that recovering the rocket was a secondary mission objective that was not achieved.

“The vehicle re-entered with excellent aerodynamic braking, ejected the braking parachute and it opened nominally,” he wrote, though attitude control data showed that it likely impacted the water at an unfavorable angle. The rocket probably took on water and may have sunk to the ocean floor.

Still, as Torres pointed out in a statement following the launch of Miura 1, the mission “culminates over 12 years of relentless effort, yet it marks just the start of our journey. This test flight has yielded valuable data, enabling us to validate crucial design elements and technologies that will underpin the development of our Miura 5 orbital launcher.”

You can watch the entire launch webcast as it happened via the embedded video below.

Miura 1: “The first private European rocket”

Before the launch of Miura 1, PLD Space said its mission was to achieve 12 minutes of flight and six minutes of microgravity for a scientific payload belonging to the German Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM). They also hoped to reach an altitude of 80 km and then recover the payload and rocket.

The company didn’t achieve most of these objectives, having peaked at 40 km throughout a mission that lasted five minutes and six seconds. Still, PLD Space will be happy that it achieved most of its technical milestones for its first launch mission.

In a press release, PLD Space said Saturday’s flight marked “the launch of the first private European rocket.”

As Ars Technica points out, this is up for debate, as Scottish firm Skyrora launched its suborbital Skylark L booster from Iceland a year ago – though it only reached an altitude of 500 meters due to an anomaly. Dutch-sounding rocket company T-Minus Engineering also claims to have launched two micro rockets at 185 km.

Still, the launch of Miura 1 may go down as a watershed moment for European spaceflight amid a rocket crisis due to its overreliance on Arianespace, as it currently has no operational rocket.

PLD Space was founded in 2011 by CEO Raúl Torres and COO Raúl Verdú to accelerate innovation on the continent. Other firms, including Scotland’s Orbex and Skyrora and Germany’s Exploration Company, are looking to end this reliance by building their rockets.

PLD Space’s Miura 1 was designed to allow PLD Space to test their systems for Miura 5, which will be their operational rocket. Unlike Miura 1, that rocket will launch small satellite payloads to LEO, and it’s expected to launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, instead of El Arenosillo, by 2025. Miura 5 will have a much larger payload capacity of 450 kilograms (992 lb).