Spanish rocket startup successfully completes first suborbital test launch
The Spanish rocket startup PLD today successfully completed its first suborbital test launch, a short flight of its Miura-1 prototype rocket, lifting off from its spaceport in Spain.
I have embedded video of the launch below, cued to just before launch. Though the plan had been to recover the first stage using parachutes, it is unclear if this occurred or was even attempted. The launch was at night, making recovery difficult or much slower, and because the broadcast was in Spanish there was no translation,
Regardless, the data from this launch will be used by the company to build its orbital rocket, Miura-5.
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The Spanish rocket startup PLD today successfully completed its first suborbital test launch, a short flight of its Miura-1 prototype rocket, lifting off from its spaceport in Spain.
I have embedded video of the launch below, cued to just before launch. Though the plan had been to recover the first stage using parachutes, it is unclear if this occurred or was even attempted. The launch was at night, making recovery difficult or much slower, and because the broadcast was in Spanish there was no translation,
Regardless, the data from this launch will be used by the company to build its orbital rocket, Miura-5.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
The rocket reached only 47 km maximum altitude (instead of planned 80 km) as it seems.
And once again we see that not only does SpaceX leave everyone else in the dust in terms of actual rocketry capability, but the theoretically much easier component of a presentable, understandable and clear video presentation. How, in 2023, do you have totally over-amped and blown out communications? When I was in military intelligence my job involved listening to Spanish language radio communications that were often coming from half a world away and were nearly buried in the static, and they still were more understandable than this.
David–
ref– “…a presentable, understandable and clear video presentation…”
Completely agree with that thought.
Sound is crummy. On the upside, it appears they have the capability for various camera angles and tracking on the video side.
Some telemetry would have been nice.
It’s a new career field: Spaceflight Media Presentation. Various specialities available. Not joking, really.
James Burke
Connections: Ep 08
“The Greatest Shot In Television”
https://youtu.be/2WoDQBhJCVQ
Why is there so much hype about every little rocket that anyone tries to launch? This does not exist in any other sector of transport. We have known the technology for more than 80 years. Chemical rocket engine technology is now very well understood and is not extremely difficult.
Purely as an OCD side note, suborbital is misspelled twice as suborbial.
Surly: Thank you. Typo fixed.
Questioner asked: “Why is there so much hype about every little rocket that anyone tries to launch? This does not exist in any other sector of transport. We have known the technology for more than 80 years. Chemical rocket engine technology is now very well understood and is not extremely difficult.”
The little rockets are interesting because virtually all of them are new and untried. The chances of a spectacular failure are high. People are interested in the spectacle, or at least the potential for the spectacle. Other sectors of transport don’t have that much potential for this kind of entertainment.
We are also interested in the progress of the new smallsat launch industry, so these new rockets are doubly interesting, and this second interest is most of the reason for the hype. In addition, these new companies often try new technologies that are untried, untrue, not understood, and potentially explosive — which goes right back to the ‘spectacle’ nature of these first launches and even of the ground testing of new engines. Watching new technologies work right is also a reason for hype. Some of us like that feature.
Questioner,
If the technology is not difficult, then why do you think that so many new rockets don’t make it to orbit on their first launch?
Don’t sell short the other transportation sectors. There are plenty of YouTube videos featuring trains, planes, ships, and automobiles.
Also, don’t get me wrong: jet engines are also highly complicated, high thrust machines, built to be lightweight, yet operating under high temperatures and high pressures in a high vibration environment. However, rocket engines are far more fuel intensive, with far more energy rushing through them than even jet engines. Rocket engines explode a little more often than even these high tech jet engines.
To Wayne,
Charles Osgood wrote a bit about Comsat in one of his books.