Alex Trelinski
ELCHE company PLD Space hopes to fly people to the moon from 2030, after unveiling the Lynx Project last week.
The presentation was made at the launch of its new rocket factory at the Elche Business Park attended by Science Minister, Diana Morant.
It will be Europe’s first private human spaceflight programme.
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PLD’S executive president Ezequiel Sanchez, teased the announcement saying that ‘we don’t like to point to the moon and stare at our fingers’.
He then unveiled a lunar capsule and screened a short video involving a man putting on an astronaut suit.
The flight rockets will be called Miura Next- using the Lynx capsule, the first for space travellers to be made in Europe.
PLD Space co-founder Raul Torres, said the Lynx Project objective was to provide ‘transport for cargo and humans by launching them into orbit and bringing them back safe and sound’.
The company is already developing a recoverable and reusable launcher that, by combining several units, will be able to reach the power necessary for such missions.
Miura 5, its first rocket capable of carrying commercial cargo, is expected to make its test flight late next year or in early 2026.
The development will continue on recoverable launches with an objective to carry 50 tons into space, as opposed to 500 kilos via Miura 5.
For the manned missions, the aim is to have a Lynx capsule recovery test next year, when it is launched from a helicopter.
In 2028 there will be a real launch test but without a crew and then once everything is secure in regard to technology and safety, the first manned mission is slated for 2030.
Sanchez and Torres insisted that they want to be Europe’s aerospace industry leaders, a mantle they were encouraged to take up on a recent visit to Elche by the director general of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher.
