PLD Space is delighted to present its first mission patch for the first MIURA 1 space launch attempt. This launch will not only be a significant milestone and a challenge for PLD Space but the beginning of a new era in the access to space. The company, founded in 2011, will try in 2019 the first space launch of a new European privately-funded rocket.

The launch will be titled as "TestFlight-1" and will be carried from Spain, from the classical CEDEA missile test range, from INTA, placed in the south west coast of Spain, where this Spanish organization will support the launch of PLD Space. INTA will provide security, monitoring, telemetry reception and remote control of the micro launcher’s onboard security system. With 50 full-time employees, the company faces the T-10 months for launching MIURA 1 suborbital rocket into space working hard in the engine and in the stage qualification. Propulsion, avionics and structures will qualify to fly in the following months in a task that will push to the limit of the developed enginery of the rocket engines, the pressurized structure of the launcher and the avionics, developed jointly with GMV. 

This launch vehicle will provide launch services to space to scientific research and technology developments in special conditions. Nowadays the payload team of PLD Space is working to incorporate different payloads onboard, among them the The German Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM). Some internal developments of the PLD Space and GMV consortium will also flight onboard as well as other small size experiments.

This launch vehicle will pave the way for a larger rocket development, known as MIURA 5, an orbital launch vehicle capable of placing into orbit payloads up to 300kg in a 500 km Sun Synchronous Orbit.