The first launch of the Spanish Miura 1 rocket was aborted yesterday at the last moment, when the device had already ignited the engine and was about to take off. The suspension occurred because the cables connecting the rocket’s electronic system to the launch tower were not released.
This is the second time that the launch of the Miura 1 has been suspended after a first attempt was canceled on May 31 due to strong gusts of wind that the rocket would have encountered during its ascent through the atmosphere and that they would have compromised integrity.
The company PLD Space, which developed the Miura 1, reported yesterday after the suspension of the launch that the rocket had not suffered any damage and that the data recorded during the countdown will be analyzed to have more information about what went to pass. A date for a third launch attempt has not yet been set.
The Miura 1 was supposed to take off yesterday at 2.43 am from the military base of Médano del Loro, in Moguer (Huelva). He had reached the end of the countdown and fired the engine, but eventually the rocket itself aborted the launch.
“We had an automatic abort probably caused by the release of the umbilicals from the avionics bay, which have not been released,” explained Raúl Torres, co-founder and CEO of PLD Space, in a video published on Twitter. The umbilicals are the cables in the jargon of the space sector and the avionics bay is the compartment of the rocket ( bay ) where its electronic control system ( avionics ) is located.
Despite the suspension of the launch, “being able to complete all the procedures and reach the self-sequence phase in time, engine start and nominal thrust is a success. 99.9% of all processes have been a success,” tweeted Torres.
The Miura 1, the first rocket developed in Spain, aims to lay the foundations for the future, more powerful Miura 5, which is expected to be launched from the space base in French Guiana. The project began in 2011 when the engineers Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú created PLD Space in Elx (Alicante) with an initial investment of 3,000 euros. Twelve years later, the company has three headquarters and more than 130 employees.
The inaugural flight of Miura 1, when it takes place, will last 6 minutes and reach an altitude of 80 kilometers. The remains of the rocket will fall into the Atlantic, where a PLD Space team will collect them.
The main objective of this first launch will be to verify the operation of key technologies in flight, which is not possible to do with simulations on the ground. In particular, the performance of the engine in real flight conditions and the aerodynamic behavior of the rocket will be analyzed, as well as the operation of all its systems and subsystems. This will allow “to obtain the largest possible volume of information to validate and design the technology that will later be transferred to Miura 5 and integrate it”, the company said in a statement.
Despite the setback of having to suspend two launch attempts shortly before liftoff, one due to weather and the other due to technical reasons, PLD Space remains hopeful of successfully launching the rocket in the coming weeks, a once the origin of yesterday’s problem has been identified and resolved. “We will analyze what happened. As you know, we are very stubborn, we will try again”, announced Raúl Torres on Twitter.
