The Spanish company PLD Space carried out its first suborbital rocket launch. Despite the fact that the height reached was less than expected, it was called a success.
The Miura 1 rocket was launched on October 7 from the territory of the El Arenosillo Experimental Center, located in southwestern Spain. In total, its flight lasted 306 seconds, the maximum altitude reached was 46 km. Currently, PLD Space specialists are engaged in extracting the rocket from the Atlantic Ocean.
It is worth noting that in a press release published before the launch, PLD Space reported that the planned altitude of the rocket flight should be 80 km, and its duration — 12 minutes. Despite this, after completing the mission, the company called it a success, stating that it had completed all the tasks set.
Later, the launch manager announced on social networks that PLD Space changed the flight path for “safety reasons”, lowering the apogee and increasing the part of the flight over the Atlantic to reduce the risk of falling fragments in the event of an accident. He did not specify when the company made this decision.
The Miura 1 rocket is designed for suborbital microgravity research. During its debut flight, it carried a payload provided by Germany’s Centre for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM).
At the same time, PLD Space considers Miura 1 primarily as a technology demonstrator for a more powerful Miura 5 orbital class launch vehicle. It will be able to carry up to 300 kg of cargo into a 500-kilometer orbit. Currently, the company predicts that the first launch of Miura 5 from the Kourou cosmodrome in French Guiana will take place in 2025.
Earlier we talked about the fact that the rocket of the Chinese “Rocket Lab” crashed during launch.
According to https://spacenews.com
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