Huelva, (EFE) and in flight required.
This was reported at 8:31 a.m. via the streaming broadcast of the launch, by Sara Poveda, the first employee of PLD Space, and Roberto Palacios, MIURA 5 systems engineer – the reusable rocket that will be launched in 2025 from the French Guiana-, which has specified that there were “strong gusts of wind in height, out of bounds”.
The mission was aborted after running the full launch chronology sequence, all of which were correct: “It’s a shame because the chronology was right, we’ve reached the point of final tank charges; today has happened like this, we will try it in the next few days ”, indicated Palacios.
In this way, the company will seek a new launch window to carry out this first launch of the Miura 1, the technological demonstrator that will serve as the basis for the Miura 5.
Second launch aborted
Everything was planned at the Médano del Loro military base, in Moguer, Huelva, for this launch, which was to be coordinated from the El Arenosillo Experimentation Center of the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), a nearby facility where the rocket It has been since April.
The chronology, a rather long process, began before midnight and at 6:30 a.m. the company reported a problem with the liquid oxygen charge that was finally resolved.
At 8:15 a.m., everything is planned, although during the “go on go”, a “crucial” moment in the chronology in which it is verified that the rocket subsystems, the launch base and the weather conditions are in optimal conditions. , the approval of the latter has not been received due to these strong gusts of wind in height, of more than 20 kilometers per hour, having to abort the mission.
This is the second time this has happened, after the same thing had to be done at the beginning of last week due to not having the right weather conditions, although on that occasion, the suspension was carried out before starting any procedure.
During the following days, the weather conditions were monitored to find the right day, which, together with the celebration of the Rocío pilgrimage around the launch base, motivated the chosen day to be today.
Miura 1 as a symbol of the Spain brand
We will have to wait to see the Miura 1, named after the wild cattle farm and as a symbol of the Spanish brand, become the first 100% Spanish private rocket to go into space and thereby value the work that began in 2011 in Elche (Alicante). ) the engineers Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú with 3,000 euros, which today translates into three offices and more than a hundred employees.
The main objective of this first flight is to verify the operation of key technologies in flight, something that to date has not been possible: The thrust profile of the engine in flight conditions, the aerodynamic behavior of the launcher, the monitoring of the nominal trajectory , the nominal behavior of all subsystems under real conditions and exposure to real spatial conditions.
The designed flight has an expected duration of 6 minutes in which microgravity and apogee conditions are reached at an altitude of 80 kilometers and a team from PLD Space will be in charge of collecting the rocket in the Atlantic Ocean once splashdown has been completed. . EFE