The European Space Agency (ESA) has begun signing the first contracts for its European Launcher Challenge (ELC), the programme with which Europe is trying to end its reliance on foreign launchers to place satellites in orbit. Among the companies selected is PLD Space, the Elche-based firm that in 2023 launched its MIURA 1 demonstrator rocket on a suborbital flight.
The contract, worth 158.9 million euros and funded mainly by Spain with a German contribution, positions the company as one of the central pieces of the future European launcher ecosystem.
The agreement is split into two components. The first aims to consolidate the commercial service of MIURA 5 and gradually ramp up its launch rate through to 2030, at a time when the company says it is already seeing growing commercial interest in the rocket in international markets.
The second, focused on what PLD Space describes as "enhanced orbital capability", will fund upgrades to MIURA 5 so that it can carry heavier payloads and reach more distant orbits, as well as incorporating propulsive landing, the first step towards reusing the rocket.
'Euronews' has spoken to Lucía Linares in French Guiana ahead of the launch of the next Meteosat. Linares is Head of Strategy and Institutional Launches at ESA and told us that companies such as PLD Space, Rocket Factory, Asbury, Maia Space and Isar Aerospace have been chosen by ESA under the Boost programme to receive co-funding: "What we do is no longer to set technical requirements for them as we do with Ariane or Vega, but simply to see how they develop their launch service and to verify that there is also private financing and that they meet certain technical objectives, of course, but without imposing anything on them."
Linares also confirmed to 'Euronews' that they have already signed with PLD Space: "I have to say that we have already signed that contract with PLD Space and for me this is a source of great excitement, not only to attend the launch they will carry out, which I have been following for many years, but also to be able to see here in French Guiana how the construction work on PLD Space's infrastructure is progressing; it will launch from French Guiana, the European Spaceport."
The road to MIURA Next
According to the Spanish company, many of the subsystems developed under this orbital-improvement programme will not stay on MIURA 5: they are designed to be transferred directly to MIURA Next, the future family of heavy launchers with which PLD Space wants to scale up. The idea is that each technical improvement certified now will shorten timelines and reduce risks when it is time for the larger launcher.
"ESA's selection of PLD Space confirms the maturity of the roadmap we have been building for years," summarised Ezequiel Sánchez, the company's executive chairman, who places the contract within a trajectory that began with MIURA 1 and which, he says, should end by transferring critical technology to the heavy launcher.
As Lucía Linares told us, the PLD Space contract is not the only one ESA has signed in this round. Germany's Rocket Factory Augsburg has been awarded 186.9 million euros for its RFA One, which will operate from the SaxaVord base in Scotland, and Isar Aerospace has secured 197.8 million for its Spectrum. The three were part of a group of five finalists, completed by MaiaSpace and Orbex, which ESA shortlisted in July 2025 after receiving twelve proposals from across Europe.
ELC was created in 2023 with the aim, among others, of having before 2030 a European successor to Ariane 6 that does not depend on a single operator, and at the ministerial meeting in Bremen in November 2025 the member states stepped up their funding commitment to 900 million euros.
For PLD Space, the contract comes on top of the 42 million it had already received from CDTI through the Aerospace PERTE and arrives in the final development phase of MIURA 5, the orbital rocket that is due to succeed MIURA 1.
This text was translated with the help of artificial intelligence. Report a problem : [[email protected]].
