Moguer (Huelva), (EFE).- The Miura 1, the rocket designed and built by the Elche company PLD Space, is one step away from reaching its destination, space, something that is already waiting at its launch base at the facilities of El Arenosillo of the Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA) in Moguer (Huelva).
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, went there this Saturday to learn about the only Spanish rocket created for space transport and a pioneer in Europe that will place Spain among the small number of countries with the capacity to launch small satellites into space. , essential for key sectors such as telecommunications, defense and scientific research; and the launch campaign.
Sánchez has indicated that projects like this one for the Miura 1 rocket show that “we have managed to make Spain, self-conscious about ‘that they invent’, now just a bad memory of the past; If not too long ago the idea of a powerful and competitive aerospace industry in Spain was a chimera, today no one can deny that it is already a reality”.
And this, because it is a sector that generated a total economic impact that exceeded 13,000 million euros in 2020; with a power capable of translating into 155,000 direct and indirect jobs and with an investment in R+D+i that already reaches 1,500 million euros.
The Aerospace PERTE
Sánchez has pointed out the strategic nature of the sector that leads to treating it as “a true State policy”, with initiatives such as PERTE Aeroespacial, which is going to mobilize 4,500 million euros until 2025 or the start-up of the Spanish Space Agency, which It will be based in Seville.
This entity is “essential to provide continuity to scientific and industrial projects, to also have a high representation in international organizations if we want our voice to be taken into account and, obviously, to develop a true national space policy linked to the sector.” private,” said the president.
He has referred to another factor that he understands to be fundamental, the change in cuts for investment in R+D+i, point at which he has highlighted that Spain is “the second country in the entire European Union that dedicates more resources from the plans of recovery of the Next Generation funds to it”.
Sánchez has congratulated PLD Space for “their great work” in the design and manufacture of Miura 1; a company “of Spanish capital, fruit of the passion of engineers from Alicante trained in our public education” and has advocated “public-private collaboration for many of the challenges that lie ahead and that require us to join forces and visionary projects that They come to us from the pride of the country”.
Public-private collaboration
“Yours is a dream shared by all of Spanish society because we are encouraged by a common objective and that is to put Spain at the forefront of this emerging but also powerful space transport industry”, he concluded.
For his part, Ezequiel Sánchez, executive president of PDL Space, pointed out that the company was born “with the dream of its two founders, Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú, of being able to contribute the vision of a microlauncher to the space race from the private sector ”.
To do this, for eleven years the company has financed a program that today has allowed them to place the first flight unit on the launch pad: “The road to get here has been very difficult, with many difficulties that we continue to face.”
He pointed out that the activity carried out has made it possible to attract “60 million in investment, opening private-public collaboration itineraries in the different stages that we are developing as pioneers at a regional, national and European level”.
Technological leadership in Europe
With the Miura 1 and its launch base, he pointed out, Spain “shows its technological leadership in Europe by providing a capacity that can allow us to lead the strategic segment of small satellites; this must be a priority national objective”.
Regarding the launch campaign, the last stage of the Miura 1 rocket program, it has been indicated that it includes the qualification tests of the flight element and the tests of the ground equipment in coordination with INTA as the competent authority.
“Our plans include consolidating a solid space company in Spain with an ambitious program that solves Earth’s problems from space,” he concluded. EFE
