On 7 October 2023 at 02:19 CET Spanish company PLD Space inaugurated their suborbital launch vehicle Miura 1 from the El Arenosillo Test Centre in Spain. The rocket is designed to send up to 100 kg up to heights of 150 km above Earth, offering short periods of weightlessness for researchers and other customers.

ESA’s Future Launchers Preparatory Programme provided funding for proposals from industry including PLD Space for an economically viable, commercially self-sustaining microlauncher, without public funding in exploitation. ESA’s support allowed these companies to bring their ideas to a basic level of maturity, creating value in the market and networking possibilities with other businesses.

Miura 5 is the next step in the PLD Space launch services portfolio targeting customers who want to launch small satellites into orbit. Set to launch up to 540 kg of hardware to a sun-synchronous orbit, Miura 5 is bigger in every way to Miura 1. The future rocket will be 2 m in diameter and have two stages to propel payloads to orbit – the first stage will eventually be recuperated with parachutes for reuse on later flights.