ORLANDO, Fla. — Spanish startup PLD Space, currently developing a small launch vehicle, has outlined plans to work on progressively larger, reusable rockets as well as a crewed spacecraft. The company pitched its long-term ambitions to be a leading European and global spaceflight company during an event at its Elche, Spain, facilities Oct.
7, a year after the company launched its first Miura 1 suborbital rocket . The current focus of PLD Space is on the Miura 5, a small launch vehicle capable of placing about 500 kilograms into a sun-synchronous orbit. The company is seeking to have the first Miura 5 on the pad at the Guiana Space Center by the end of 2025, with a launch to follow in January or February 2026, said Raúl Verdú, chief business development officer and co-founder of PLD Space, during the presentation.
While the Miura 5 initial launches will be expendable, PLD Space seeks to recover and reuse the first stage. That initially involved using parachutes and recovering the stage after splashing down in the ocean, but the company now says it is pursuing propulsive landing of the stage, the same approach used by SpaceX’s Falcon 9. In a separate interview, Raúl Torres, chief executive of PLD Space, said the company concluded that propulsive landing is the only way to achieve reusability.
“If you see an airplane from Boeing or an airplane from Airbus, the way of landing is the same,” he said. “We reached the conclusion that the only way to make a stage reusa.
