Alex Trelinski
ELCHE’S PLD Space will launch the first private rocket in Europe -Miura 1- on Wednesday from the El Arenosillo Experimentation Centre, at the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), in Huelva.
Lift off will be at 5.30pm and can be watched live via the company’s YouTube account and will be presented by Sara Poveda, the first employee of PLD Space and by Miura 5 systems engineer Roberto Palacios.
A PLD statement said that the ‘the mission of the first experimental flight with Miura 1 aims to collect the greatest volume of information possible to test design, technology, and processes which will be into the Miura 5 orbital launcher.
PLD hope to be the first company in Spain to launch small satellites on commercial flights into space via Miura 5.
Since the arrival of Miura 1 in Huelva, they have carried out ‘numerous unitary and combined tests’ to guarantee the ‘correct operation’ of the launcher, the launch infrastructure and the ground segment.
PLD Space has emphasised 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 is to collect ‘as much flight data as possible’, which be important to work out potential improvements or changes for the future Miura 5 orbital launcher.
The launcher will try to achieve microgravity conditions for the payloads travelling on board, something that will occur after the MECO (engine shutdown) event and the start of the ballistic flight phase.
The first mission will allow PLD Space to test the operation of ‘key’ technologies in flight, something that to date they have not been able to do.
In particular, they will analyse the thrust profile of the engine under flying conditions; the aerodynamic behaviour of the launcher; monitoring the nominal trajectory; the nominal behaviour of all subsystems under real conditions; and exposure to real space conditions.
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