The Elche company PLD Space has been selected for the development of the first Spanish microsatellite launcher, a project that has a budget of up to 40.5 million for the development and construction phase and is managed through the Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI).
The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, announced, during the closing of a meeting on artificial intelligence and human development at the University of Valencia, that the CDTI has already defined the competition and the company PLD has been selected for the development of the launcher.
The contest opened more than a year ago and in June of last year the first competitive phase was resolved, in which PLD Space and the firm Pangea Aerospace, S.L. were chosen.
Morant explained that there is talk of more than 40 million euros and of supporting PLD to develop the Miura 5 rocket to be able to launch microsatellites into orbit, which will allow us to “put ourselves at the forefront of a technology that does not yet exist in Europe.” “, has manifested.
PLD Space launched its Miura 1 rocket from the El Arenosillo base (Huelva) in October 2023, a launch that, as the minister recalled, “had us glued to the screen watching the takeoff of a rocket in our country for the first time.” , watching a countdown in Spanish” and that took a suborbital rocket into space with 100% Spanish technology, the first private rocket that reached that capacity in all of Europe.
Morant has stated that Spain wants to be the first country to have a technology that does not yet exist in Europe, through the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, “with an unprecedented commitment and investment.”
“There is no better way to accompany the talent that emerges from universities and the talent we have in Spain than with investment,” he concluded.
