PLD Space starts full-stage tests of Miura 5 ahead of 2027 flight

At the PLD Space test facilities in Teruel, Spain, a complete second stage of the Miura 5 rocket now stands upright, fully assembled, and is about to face its qualification tests. For a company that has so far flown only a suborbital demonstrator, it is the moment when the rocket stops being a set of parts and starts behaving as one machine.

Miura 5 is a two-stage small launcher, 35.7 metres tall with a 2-metre diameter, burning kerosene and liquid oxygen. The first stage uses five TEPREL-C engines, and the second stage a single vacuum-optimised TEPREL-C engine. The vehicle is designed to put up to roughly one tonne into equatorial low Earth orbit, or 540 kilograms into sun-synchronous orbit. PLD Space previously flew the suborbital Miura 1, and it has chosen to keep manufacturing, testing and launch operations inside one organisation.

The new milestone is the full integration of the second stage, followed by stage-separation tests that confirmed the interfaces, commands and timing of the split between the two stages. The stage now enters a campaign with a Wet Dress Rehearsal, a full run of the fuelling procedure without launch, and a static hot-fire, a firing of the engine while the vehicle stays on the ground. The engines are part of the same effort: seven complete engines have been built and integrated, supported by 35 combustion chambers, 40 gas generators and 15 turbopumps, and the first flight-configuration engines have started their own test campaigns.

Building three vehicles at once is the company's answer to the slowness of single-prototype development. Two qualification units run different system tests while the flight vehicle continues through integration, so lessons from one can be applied to the others. CEO Raúl Torres put it this way: “Having manufactured three vehicles in parallel allows us to accelerate this learning process and transfer the results of qualification campaigns to the first flight vehicle.” Launch-site work is moving in parallel: the strongback that raises the rocket vertical, the hold-down mechanisms and the umbilical systems are being validated, and PLD Space is working with the French space agency, CNES, to align safety procedures for operations at Kourou.

For Europe and for the company's suppliers, the immediate effect is a schedule and a supply chain. PLD Space has invested €42.7 million in a domestic supply chain, working with 493 suppliers, more than 7,500 subcontracted components and over 1,000 jobs. Its manufacturing site in Elche covers 17,000 square metres. If the company holds its target of a first flight from Kourou in the first half of 2027, that flight will be the real test of all this preparation. Until then, the timetable, the performance figures and the supply numbers are PLD Space's own, and the rocket has not yet left the ground.