PLD Space wins the aerospace PERTE with the best technical qualification to develop a micro launcher

ALICANTE, July 3. (EUROPEAN PRESS) -

PLD Space, the Elche (Alicante) company that designs, develops, manufactures and operates the first private launcher in Europe, has won the aerospace Strategic Project for Recovery and Economic Transformation (PERTE) to develop a micro launcher, having obtained the best technical rating by the contracting committee and the independent experts designated for the evaluation of the projects presented.

The company has attended PERTE with a large part of its technological partners and with strategic supply agreements, which "consolidates the project and allows it to speed up its development." Among the strategic partners already approved in Miura 1 are Aciturri, Airbus, Air Liquide, Alter, Anteral, Applus, Caye, Cecom, Cmasa, Deimos, Insyte, Logo 2, Mecanizados Especiales, Occam, Repsol, Swagelok, Talleres Ramón Clemente and Tecno Lanema.

This supply chain will provide technical support, components, engineering support and manufacturing for the development and production of the Miura 5 orbital launcher, scheduled for launch in 2025, the company has detailed in a statement.

The executive president of PLD Space, Ezequiel Sánchez, has stated that they are working to facilitate European access to space, something that he believes they will achieve "very soon". "If we want Spain to become the tenth country with direct access to space, we must promote private-public collaboration, but we cannot replicate in PERTE what has not worked previously in ESA programs. We must work together to be more agile and with a different leadership and risk-taking style", he emphasized.

The company has highlighted that its track record, together with its "high industrial capabilities and financial strength", along with the drive for the Miura 5 supply chain and its commercial potential, consolidate PLD Space as "one of the 'players' of reference in the sector of small space launchers at a European level", which has been "positively valued" by the bidding body for the aerospace PERTE.

The company's co-founder and director of business development, Raúl Verdú, has indicated that, thanks to this contract, Spain and PLD Space will be able to "compete in the global market for launch services for satellites weighing less than 500 kilos without complexes".

"As we have shown in the past, this public contract will allow us to triple the total budget available with private investment, which guarantees that we will be able to deliver our first Miura 5 unit meeting the demanding deadlines set by this contract and ensure that Spain has access capacity to space independently", he underlined.

The first phase of the PERTE, which will begin once the contracts are formalized, is endowed with 1.5 million euros for each successful bidder and focused on the design of the launcher and will end in December 2023. The bidding entity will then evaluate the proposals presented and the most competitive design will go to a second phase in 2024, which is valued at 40.5 million euros.

PLD Space has stated that it is "the only Spanish company that has experience developing launchers and the only one that has the necessary infrastructure and capacity to develop, manufacture and launch an orbital rocket into space in just two and a half years".

Currently, the company is immersed in the launch of the Miura 1, the first private rocket developed in Europe and the only one that is ready to be launched soon on the continent. It has been fully designed by PLD Space as a technology demonstrator with recovery and reuse requirements that "only three companies in space history have achieved."

This first suborbital flight of the Miura 1 represents a "turning point" for the development of the Miura 5 orbital launcher, since it will make it possible to extract a "large volume of information to validate a large part of the design and technology", which will serve as the basis for developing the Miura 5 orbital launcher.

The CEO and co-founder of PLD Space, Raúl Torres, has highlighted that they are advancing at "breakneck speed" in the development of Miura 5 thanks to Miura 1, since they have "an integrated team and a clear engineering strategy".

"Although we failed to launch on the last try, we were able to complete all the procedures and get to the autosequence phase on time, with nominal engine start and thrust. All these learnings carry over to Miura 5 development, so that we are taking a qualitative leap in its development", he has highlighted.

PLD Space --which has obtained more than 65 million in financing to date-- is headquartered in Elche, has a team made up of more than 140 professionals and three centers located in Elche, Teruel and Huelva that total more than 100,000 m2 of industrial facilities. It is "the only Spanish company" that has the necessary infrastructure to validate the different subsystems of the Miura 5, including a test bench for liquid fuel rocket engines.

Having recently received permission from the French National Center for Studies (CNES) to operate with Miura 5 at the Guiana Space Center (Korou) in 2025, PLD Space becomes one of the three European private companies that will be able to operate from the historic space center.

In addition, the company already has launch service reservations for its first five flights and has signed an understanding agreement with the European space transport operator Arianespace, whereby both companies will study possible cooperation to respond to growing commercial demand. access to space.