The inaugural flight of the first Spanish rocket, the Miura -1, was canceled this Saturday due to a last-minute technical problem, the manufacturer, the company PLD Space, announced.
The launch, unprecedented in Spain, was scheduled for the province of Huelva and was interrupted at the end of the countdown, according to images released on the website of the company PLD Space.
¡¡CANCEL during ignition!! The MIURA-1 cohete failed to take off today, but was recovered safely on the platform pic.twitter.com/AlbuabzTux
– Frontera Espace (@FronteraSpacial) June 17, 2023
The co-founder of the Spanish start-up Raul Torres said the procedure was “automatically interrupted” by a problem in one of the power supply lines connected to the launcher before takeoff.
Named after the traditional Miura bulls, the inaugural flight of the Miura-1 was initially scheduled for May 31, but was canceled due to high winds.
The small 12-meter rocket would be launched from a Spanish military base in Andalusia, near Moguer, and fly about a hundred kilometers above the Gulf of Cadiz, high enough to reach space, but the rocket doesn’t have enough power to orbit around the earth.
This suborbital mission is intended to carry a payload for experiments in microgravity and especially to prepare the future PLD Space launcher, the Miura-5.
About 70% of the internally developed components for the Miura-1 will be used for the larger Miura-5, 35 meters high and with two stages.
The market for small satellites (weighing less than 500 kilograms) that the Miura-5 aims to put into orbit from 2025 is huge, with around 18,500 expected to be launched over the next ten years, according to a specialist consultancy.
Source: DN
