The Launch of the James Webb Telescope & Spanish Reusable Orbital Satellite Launching on 2022
PLD Space, a spanish startup, unveiled on November 16th their fully assembled reusable suborbital rocket, which will be launched in the second half of 2022. The Miura 1, as it is called, was presented in Madrid and will be soon returned to the PLD Space technical facility in Teruel for qualification testing.
The rocket is designed to carry a payload of up to 100 kilograms, and will be able to reach a maximum altitude of 150 kilometers. It is the first step towards the launch of the Miura 5 orbital rocket, which will inherit the thrust chamber, injectors and other components from the Miura 1 pressure-fed engine. The Miura 5 target is to launch in July 2024 from French Guiana.
“There are some very promising players in Europe. And in our opinion, we have a strong position in Spain because of a lot of things such as the maturity level of the development, the investors we have, national support [and] European support”.
Raúl Verdú, the COO and Cofounder of PLD Space.
PLD Space was founded in 2011 and began development on the first design of the Miura 1 engine in 2014. The company is based in Elche, with facilities in Teruel, Huelva and French Guiana.
This is more evidence that Spain, along with Germany and the UK, is positioning itself as one of the top European countries regarding the space industry, and we are thrilled to be part of the process.
NASA's New Eye in the Sky will launch soon a revolutionary Telescope to study the mysteries of the universe, and some of its first targets will be the fascinating planets that orbit other stars.
Behind glass, sealed within a clean room, the James Webb Space Telescope looks like a museum exhibit, an artifact destined to be preserved and revered. However, its journey has only just begun.
An army of technicians is preparing the telescope for its next million-kilometer trip into space, where the observatory's golden honeycomb eye will look back in time, observing the early beginnings of planets, stars and galaxies.
