Miura 5

The Miura 5 has been designed to reuse the majority of the technology developed for the preceding Miura 1. However, many of these technologies will be refined substantially to incorporate lessons learnt with the earlier rocket. New design elements include the propellant tanks and engine; it remains a liquid fuel rocket. Many elements of the Miura 5, including the propulsion system, structures, and avionics development, will be designed and produced in-house. Miura 5 is to be propelled by a single TEPREL-C turbopump engine, unlike its predecessor, which used a pressurized tank cycle instead. A key feature of the Miura 5 is its reusable first stage. The recovery process shall employ a combination of engine thrust and parachutes. While furnished with a larger parachute arrangement to account for the larger scale of the Miura 5, the various subsystems controlling the recovery are identical those used on the Miura 1. The Miura 5 was originally envisioned to have a lift capacity of 150 kilograms; in comparison to Vega, Arianespace’s smallest launcher, it was to be capable of carrying roughly one-tenth of the payload. == Launch sites ==

During July 2019, it was announced that PLD Space had reached an agreement with the French space agency CNES to study the launch of Miura 5 at the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana. Under a separate arrangement, the Spanish agency National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA) has also worked with PLD Space in securing a launch site at the El Hierro Launch Centre, which has been claimed by the company to be the optimal choice from a technical perspective. PLD Space has also publicly commented on the possibility of conducting launches from the planned spaceport in Azores, but the status of this proposal is presently uncertain. During mid 2023, an agreement was signed with CNES for the future maiden launch of the Miura 5 to be conducted at Guiana. == Development==

LPSR Program During October 2016, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the selection of the Spanish aerospace start-up PLD Space as the main contractor of the LPSR ("Liquid Propulsion Stage Recovery") program, one part of the agency's Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP). Testing On 11 April 2019, with the assistance of the Spanish Army, PLD Space performed a successful drop and recovery test of the first stage of a Miura 5 demonstrator at El Arenosillo Test Center. This demonstration stage, which had a reduced 1.5 m diameter instead of 1.8 m, was dropped by a Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter from a height of 5 km. It slowed its rate of descent using a total of three parachutes before performing a water landing, at which point it had been descending at a rate of roughly ten meters per second. The demonstrator was recovered by divers and brought back to Mazagón by a tugboat to be thoroughly examined. During 2021, in light of the successful drop testing of the first stage, ESA awarded a new contract to PLD Space to continue with development of the Miura 5. The initial model, which was planned to be used for the first two flights, would be entirely expendable. It was planned to be superseded by an improved model of Miura 5 with a recoverable first stage, which is intended to perform the planned commercial launches. In May 2026, the company published first photos of flight hardware for Miura 5's first flight, which was expected to take place later in 2026. ==See also==