WASHINGTON — Spanish launch vehicle startup PLD Space has postponed a suborbital test flight to September after weather and a technical glitch scrubbed earlier launch attempts.
The corporate announced June 27 that the launch of its Miura 1 rocket from a military base in southwestern Spain can be rescheduled for a while in September. The corporate cited “obligatory compliance” with a Spanish law and military directive that restrict such activities to stop wildfires.
PLD Space had planned to conduct the suborbital launch from the coastal facility operated by the federal government’s National Institute for Aerospace Technology in late May. Nonetheless, it postponed a launch attempt May 31 within the hours before launch, blaming high upper-level winds that persevered for days.
The corporate equipped for a second attempt early June 17 (June 16 U.S. time). The countdown reached zero and the vehicle’s first-stage engine ignited, only to right away shut down. PLD Space later said it aborted the launch because not all the umbilical cables attached to the rocket’s avionics bay separated as required.
“Launching a rocket designed from scratch is a significant challenge and we successfully accomplished 99.9% of all pre-launch procedures as much as the countdown,” Raúl Torres, chief executive and co-founder of PLD Space, said in a press release concerning the launch delay. “All the pre-launch phase was a convincing success, and we’re very near successfully launching Europe’s first reusable rocket.”
Miura 1 is a suborbital vehicle whose single stage is designed to splash down under a parachute and be recovered. It will possibly carry as much as 100 kilograms of payload to an altitude of 150 kilometers.
The vehicle is primarily a technology demonstrator for the corporate’s Miura 5 small launch vehicle, intended to put as much as 500 kilograms into orbit starting as soon as 2025. “For each second Miura 1 is within the air, we can be learning and gathering data for the event of Miura 5,” Ezequiel Sanchez, executive president of PLD Space, said in a press release in May concerning the planned Miura 1 launch.
While Miura 1 remained on the launch pad, PLD Space has been making other progress on Miura 5. The corporate announced June 21 it signed a binding contract with the French space agency CNES to make use of the previous Diamant launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, for Miura 5. The corporate previously announced its intent to launch from Kourou.
Under the agreement, CNES can be accountable for basic infrastructure like roads and utilities, while PLD Space will construct its own launch facilities there. German launch vehicle developer Rocket Factory Augsburg also announced an agreement with CNES June 21 to make use of the Diamant site, which is meant to support multiple small launch vehicles.
PLD Space individually announced June 14 an agreement with Arianespace to check “possible future cooperation” on space transportation. Arianespace signed an identical agreement with Orbex, a U.K.-based small launch vehicle developer, June 13.
The agreements were somewhat surprising since Arianespace executives had previously expressed skepticism that there can be much demand for so-called “microlaunchers” just like the Miura 5. It has focused its attention on the Vega C, with a substantially larger payload capability than microlaunchers, and the far larger Ariane 6.
Pablo Gallego, senior vp of sales and customers at PLD Space, suggested in a press release concerning the Arianespace agreement that his company could complement Arianespace’s offerings with launches of multiple smallsats to specific orbits. “A possible collaboration could facilitate solutions highly demanded by our customers, providing the smallsat community with the peace of mind to get to any orbit at any time.”