PLD space

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Payload Aerospace SL

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 2011
Seat Elche , Spain
Number of employees 40 (June 2018)
Branch Space travel
Website pldspace.com

Payload Aerospace SL , or PLD Space for short , is a Spanish aerospace company founded in 2011 in Elche . The company's aim is to develop inexpensive rockets for the transport of small satellites .

history

Corporate development

PLD Space was founded in 2011 by Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdu in Elche (Spain). PLD Space has been operating a test bench for rocket motors at Teruel Airport since 2014 . Here, on July 1, 2015, the company successfully carried out the first test runs of its self-developed liquid rocket engine .

In August 2017, PLD Space moved to a new company headquarters in the Elche industrial park. The production facilities for Miura 1 are also located in the same building. In June 2018, around 40 employees were working there on the two launch vehicles, Miura 1 and Miura 5. At the time, the company was planning to expand its test facilities with a vertical test bench. At this point it should be possible to fully qualify the Miura 1.

financing

PLD Space has been funded with public and private funds in several investment rounds. In 2013 the company completed an initial investment round of $ 1.6 million, including seed funding from the Spanish Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (CDTI).

PLD Space received its first commercial order as one of the participants in the Horizon 2020 program “Small innovative Launcher for Europe” (SMILE) of the European Union . The company is responsible for testing the liquid rocket propulsion systems designed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

In April 2016, the company secured another $ 1.56 million investment from the Spanish CDTI under the TEPRE program to develop a reusable rocket engine.

In October 2016, the European Space Agency (ESA) selected PLD Space as the main contractual partner for the "Liquid Propulsion Stage Recovery (LPSR)" program, the aim of which is to develop a reusable first stage rocket. The company received funding of $ 800,000 for this.

In a second round of investments in January 2017, the company received $ 7.1 million from multiple private sources. The main investor was the Spanish company GMV with 3.2 million US dollars.

PLD Space received an additional $ 2.34 million in January 2018 through the European Commission's SME instrument.

In February 2018, the company received another contract from the European Space Agency for $ 368,000. PLD Space is the only SME among five space companies that have been commissioned to carry out a feasibility study on a commercial microlauncher.

Rocket engines

PLD Space is developing its own liquid rocket engine called TEPREL, named after a Spanish funding program that finances its development. It uses kerosene as a fuel and liquid oxygen as an oxidizer. In mid-2018, the company had already tested several versions of the engine on its test bench at Teruel Airport.

TEPREL DEMO

The TEPREL-DEMO rocket engine was successfully tested for the first time in 2015 and is able to generate a thrust of 28  kN . This is a calorimetric (??) model of the later TEPREL engine. The purpose of this model is to demonstrate stable combustion and to obtain relevant information for further development about the engine behavior during ignition and combustion, pressures and temperatures along the combustion chamber, thrust and fuel mass flows. In addition, the engine was used to test the test bench hardware and software.

TEPREL-A

The TEPREL-A engine, which was tested for the first time in 2017, has several improvements, such as a revised injector geometry and regenerative cooling. The latter makes it possible to operate the engine for approximately two minutes, which corresponds to the desired burn time for a suborbital flight with Miura 1. At sea level, the TEPREL-A engine achieves a thrust of 32 kN.

TEPREL-B

TEPREL-B is the first flight version of the TEPREL rocket engine. The design of the TEPREL engine has been further redesigned to reduce its overall weight. The engine also has a system for thrust vector control .

Launchers

Miura 1 (formerly ARION 1)

design

Miura 1 is designed as a sounding rocket . With it it is possible to carry out scientific research in weightlessness or to explore the high atmosphere . At the same time, the Miura 1 also serves as a technology demonstrator. PLD Space plans to use 70% of the technologies tested with the Miura 1 in its “Microlauncher” Miura 5 as well.

In its final design, the Miura 1 is a single-stage rocket powered by the TEPREL-1B rocket engine. It is 12.7 m long, its outer diameter is 0.7 m. It is designed to take up to 200 kg payload for a suborbital flight. On its first flight, it is supposed to carry 100 kg payload to 150 km.

Miura 1 is equipped with a recovery system that enables the entire rocket to be recovered and reused. This would make it the first reusable launcher in Europe.

Time schedule

The first test flight of Miura 1 should take place in 2019. For 2020, PLD Space planned to start commercial flights with up to eight suborbital flights per year.

Miura 5 (formerly ARION 2)

As a so-called “microlauncher”, the Miura 5 should offer launch options for CubeSats and small satellites , which require a flexible and dedicated launch vehicle and therefore cannot fly with traditional launch providers.

design

Miura 5 is planned as a three-stage rocket with orbital flight capability, all three stages of the rocket are to be propelled by liquid engines. It is a further development of the Miura 1. The mass of the rocket should be 7000 kg and the length 18 m. The payload capacity was originally intended to be 150 kg for low earth orbits of 400 km; this was later expanded to 300 kg at an altitude of 500 km. The first stage of the rocket should be reusable several times.

Time schedule

The first flight of Miura 5 is Template: future / in 2 yearsplanned for 2022 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Spain’s GMV takes a stake in PLD Space's reusable rocket quest. January 9, 2017. Retrieved August 16, 2019 (American English).
  2. ↑ a b c admin: home. In: PLD Space. Retrieved August 16, 2019 (European Spanish).
  3. ↑ Satnews Publishers: Daily Satellite News. Retrieved August 16, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Start of design for concept SMall Innovative Launcher for Europe (SMILE) - NLR News . In: Netherlands Aerospace Center . May 31, 2016 ( nlr.org [accessed August 16, 2019]).
  5. ↑ Europa Press: La ESA confía a la española PLD Space su proyecto de cohete reutilizable. November 2, 2016, accessed August 16, 2019 .
  6. ↑ PLD Space: el primer cohete reutilizable europeo. In: Eureka. November 2, 2016, Retrieved August 16, 2019 (Spanish).
  7. ↑ admin: home. In: PLD Space. Retrieved August 16, 2019 (European Spanish).
  8. ↑ Space Tech Expo Europe: European Space Conference & Trade Show 2019: PLD Space Awarded € 2m Grant from the European Commission for the ARION Micro-Launcher Program. Retrieved August 16, 2019 .
  9. ↑ esa: ESA explores microlaunchers for small satellites. Retrieved August 16, 2019 (UK English).
  10. ↑ ESA awards five smallsat launcher study contracts. February 9, 2018, Retrieved August 16, 2019 (American English).
  11. ↑ a b admin: home. In: PLD Space. Retrieved August 16, 2019 (European Spanish).
  12. ↑ a b c d Europa apuesta por PLD Space para alcanzar el espacio. In: Eureka. February 16, 2018, accessed August 16, 2019 (Spanish).
  13. ↑ Arion, el cohete español capaz de alcanzar la Luna. January 21, 2018, accessed August 16, 2019 (Spanish).
  14. ↑ El joven ingeniero que lanzará el primer cohete espacial español . La Nueva España, accessed October 30, 2019.