The months of April and May are going to be key for PLD Space and its rockets: Miura 1, its suborbital launcher, is already at the launch base in Huelva and has two launch windows ready. The path up to here has not been one of roses and there is still a long way to go.
Two launch windows. The great litmus test of the first space rocket created in Spain, the Miura 1, will take place between this month of March and next month. The launcher is already, in fact, at the El Arenosillo Experimentation Center (CEDEA) of the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA) in the province of Huelva. The flight, originally planned for the second quarter of 2022, already seems imminent.
Two of the key features of Miura 1 are that it is a suborbital shuttle, that is, its trajectory will not take it into orbit, but rather it will descend to Earth before completely circling it. The other, that it is a recoverable and reusable rocket.
What the rocket has ahead of it is a mission of about 12 minutes, during which it will rise to a height of about 150 kilometers, spending between 3 and 4 minutes in microgravity. From there it will begin its descent “headfirst” or with the cap in front. About 5 km from the ground a parachute will open and the rocket will splash down in the waters of the Atlantic some 70 km from the coast.
One stage and one engine. Miura 1 is a single-stage, single-engine vehicle, with a length of about 12.5 meters, a diameter of 70 cm, and a mass of two and a half tons. The engine is a TEPREL-1B. The development of this piece was a huge headache to the point of causing a serious incident in 2019 in one of its tests.
As explained by Francisco José Torcal Milla and Santiago Forcada Pardo in an article in The Conversation, the engine, which is now in its fifth iteration, is “very similar” to the Kestrel developed by the American company SpaceX. The engine is capable of generating a thrust force of 30.1 kN at sea level with a specific impulse of 240 seconds.
The experts from the University of Zaragoza also explain in their article that the engine is fed with Jet A-1 kerosene, the same used in commercial aviation, as fuel; and liquid oxygen as an oxidizing agent.
One step towards the Miura 5. Miura 1 is an interesting vehicle, but it is only the prelude to Miura 5, the orbital launcher of the company from Elche. As Torcal Milla and Forcada Pardo explain in their article, Miura 1 will serve, among other things, to “test up to 70% of the technologies that will later form part of the final prototype, Miura 5”.
Scheduled for 2025, Miura 5 will be a two-stage rocket whose objective will be to place small satellites in orbit. The first stage of this vehicle has also been designed to be recoverable and reusable (the company even talks about 15 launches per year), it will have five engines capable of generating a total thrust of 525 kN.
The second stage of the Miura 5 will have an engine that will generate 45 kN of thrust and will be in charge of putting the load into orbit. In total, the complete rocket with its two stages and cargo hold will measure about 26 meters in height and two in diameter.
Size matters (less is more). The Miura 1 litmus test will go beyond what is related to its engineering. So far the company responsible for the project, PLD Space, has managed to close several contracts for the future use of the rockets. A successful test will probably mean further progress in this regard.
The company’s goal with the Miura 5 is to create a vehicle specialized in putting small payloads into orbit efficiently and therefore economically. Currently, the only way to achieve these levels of efficiency in small payload launches is to launch them as secondary payloads in heavier vehicles.
As Torcal Milla and Forcada Pardo explain, this implies two problems. The first, losing decision-making capacity regarding the path and orbit that the load will reach. The second, a growing “tail” to achieve a gap in these trips.
Imagen | PLD Space
