PLD Space's reverie in the shadow of Elche's Palm Grove
On 7 October, at their new headquarters in Elche, the Raules brought together a group of civilian and military authorities and a large group of senior executives from the national space sector, as well as potential investors and clients of their services, under the slogan ‘Beyond’, to announce and show them, with all pomp and circumstance, the ambitions that until then had been kept in the utmost secrecy.
They revealed their determination to develop a family of large rockets with a high payload capacity - no less than 53 tonnes - as well as their intention to develop a space capsule ‘Made in Spain’ to travel to the moon. These initiatives are very similar to those that have been underway for many years in the United States, China, Russia and India, nations with powerful official institutions and large space companies with huge budgets... which is not the case in Spain.
The national, regional, provincial and local political authorities invited to the ceremony, led by the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, were impressed, enthusiastic, and applauded wildly each of the dazzling proposals that came out of the hat of Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú.
The staging was very, very well organised and executed in every way and it was possible to follow it live via streaming, as was my case. Without resorting to a fashionable presenter, the two PLD executives and the company's president, Ezequiel Sánchez, took turns in their explanations, so that all the interest of the on-site and virtual audience was focused on their proposals. And they succeeded, they certainly did.
Aiming for the Moon
One after the other, the three PLD leaders pointed out that within ten years they want to have a family of heavy and super-heavy space vectors ready, of which they projected drawings and spectacular simulations under the name of ‘Miura Next’, which will be recoverable and reusable. With them they aspire, in the words of Raúl Torres, ‘to cover one hundred percent of the commercial launch capacity of any country in the world, except for Russia and China, which have their own dynamics’. That's all there is to it!
As icing on the cake, Torres unveiled, shrouded in an artificial fog, what appeared to be a life-size model, but which he claimed was an engineering model of a manned spacecraft ‘Made in PLD’, to take astronauts to and from our natural satellite since, he assured: ‘Our ambition is to serve as a transport company between the Earth and the Moon (...) beyond the year 2030’.
Named Lince, the capsule is designed to accommodate four or five astronauts on lunar journeys, although another capsule is also planned to carry cargo to a future space station. Raúl Torres anticipated that the first tests will begin next year... if all goes well. And that the first Lince mission will carry three dummies full of instruments, which will remain in orbit for three days. On returning to Earth, they will land in the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, depending on weather conditions.
The professionals of the Spanish space community, aware of the titanic technological, economic and talent challenges involved in what their eyes were seeing and what their ears were hearing, were stupefied, amazed, without batting an eyelid, at the magnitude, complexity and large investments of the proposed projects. But courtesy obliges, and it was time to offer congratulations, pats on the back and a smile or two.
Fact or fiction? It is well known in the sector that Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú, two entrepreneurs who back in 2011 founded a small company with the far-fetched intention of launching rockets into space and putting small satellites into orbit, a project that nobody or almost nobody believed in, transmit their ardour, impetus and enthusiasm. Over the years, Los Raules are well on their way to achieving the goal they set themselves, which is to make the two-stage Miura 5 commercial launcher a reality, which is currently under development, and to turn PLD into a major launch services company.
Torres and Verdú, Verdú and Torres, are known nationally and internationally for their strong leadership and communication skills, which they more than confirmed seven days ago at the presentation of their new initiatives in Elche. Together with Ezequiel Sanchez, they form a trio that knows how to win, convince, team up and inspire their employees, which is evident in their collaborators and in the working atmosphere that reigns at PLD.
First things first and it is called Miura 5
The date they chose to unveil their ambitious new projects is no coincidence. Taking advantage of the first anniversary of the maiden flight of their first rocket, the Miura 1 -which reached an altitude of nearly 50 kilometres-, Raúl Verdú announced the current status of the Miura 5. Its development is financed with 40 million euros by the PERTE Aeroespacial and, at the end of 2025, as stated in the contract, ‘you will have to deliver the prototype to me with a ribbon’, said Minister Morant in a friendly manner at the end of the event in Elche.
It should be added that today, Monday 14 October, the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, opened the 75th International Astronautical Congress in the city of Milan a few hours ago, the largest annual event in the global space ecosystem, attended by the cream of agencies, corporations, research centres and companies from the five continents. From the impressions I have been able to gather, until the Congress closes on 18 October, PLD projects will be the talk of the town for managers, engineers, experts, researchers and academics from all countries.
It should be noted that the initiative of PLD's trustees in unveiling their amazing plans seeks to achieve several major objectives for the sustainability of the company. Undoubtedly, it aims to mobilise and secure private and institutional funding from official bodies of the Spanish Government and Europe. For example, from the European Space Agency (ESA), which in a few months will publish a call for proposals within the framework of the ‘European Launcher Challenge’, ELC. Moreover, the path they have charted means that their most direct German, British and French competitors will have to react.
However, the initiatives outlined above are unlikely to be credible enough to make the transition from computer screens to reality. To say nothing of the immeasurable technological aspects, the investments to tackle the development processes of the Lince spacecraft, the Miura Next family of rockets and their associated ground infrastructures are in the order of several billion euros, something out of place in Spain. However, it is possible that international cooperation programmes such as ESA's ELC could provide some funding for parts of the ambitious projects.
In any case, PLD's proposals are bordering on, or rather, surpassing the inconceivable. In my view, it is out of place and may even be counter-productive for potential investors and customers to make pharaonic plans before the Miura 5's maiden flight. Concentrating on making Miura 5 a reality is their number one goal. The Raules know this.
It is unreasonable for PLD, as if it were a large industrial corporation of the likes of Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or even Google or Amazon, to distract resources and time on more than dubious, even unrealisable, ventures, except to meet ESA demands, in its case. Their efforts should be concentrated on getting Miura 5 off the ground on time, being reliable, having many customers, proving to be a commercial success and making the company solvent. It is worth remembering the phrase made famous by the great bullfighter Rafael Guerra (1862-1941), better known as ‘El Guerra’, who said: ‘What cannot be, cannot be and is impossible’. Anyway.... All the best and good luck!