At the end of February 2024, the expansion of the company Palyload Aerospace SL, known as PLD Space, at Teruel Airport was announced in order to be able to test the Miura 5 rocket in these facilities.
A date and an announcement, with an investment of about 7 million euros as stated in the agreement signed between the aerospace company, the Government of Aragon and the Teruel Airport Consortium, after which in recent months new steps have been taken to design all the expansion and carry out all the necessary studies for the development of this activity. Now, the processing of the administrative procedure for the simplified environmental impact assessment of the project is made public. expansion for the aircraft engine testing and testing plant at the Teruel Airport, announcing more details of the project.
PLD Space, founded in 2011, plans to launch the Miura 5 orbital launcher in December 2026, for which it will undertake the expansion taking advantage of existing facilities as it is considered the best option among those studied and it is seen that no new impacts will appear.
The expansion will thus be carried out on the plot, which now has 13,337 square meters – after a first expansion from 3,570 square meters -, to which 154,810 square meters which it will have once all the new infrastructure is completed.
The new facilities will consist of a new 5,000 square meter hangar for the integration and maintenance of the launcher and the existing test benches. A storage area will also be enabled, rooms for cleaning elements in contact with liquid oxygen, assembly and maintenance rooms for aviation electronic elements and offices with 1,300 square meters.
Likewise, the access control booth will be undertaken, with a small parking lot for visiting vehicles, in addition to executing the corresponding actions with the development of roads between the offices, the hangar and access control, among others.
Within the expansion, highlights the test bench of the Miura 5 vertically for the validation of the geometry and stability of the first and second stage engines of the Miura 5. In this way, sComplete engines or subsystems may be tested which compose them separately in several campaigns, especially the combustion chambers (TCA), turbopumps (TPA) and gas generator (GG). All this will be carried out through propulsion testing in a vertical arrangement.
Each of the facilities will have three positions to work in one or the other depending on whether the assembly or disassembly is carried out in another of the positions. A pit will also be built within the land, which will help dampen noise, which will be made of reinforced concrete. On it, the metal frames will be placed to hold the Miura 5.
The infrastructures will have a horizontal propulsion test bench consisting of a vertical reinforced concrete wall about 3 meters high in which an S275JR steel plate is inserted with through wall tubes that allow the passage of installations and control elements.
At the same time, there will be other areas for destructive testing of the fuel tanks of the Miura 5 in a vertical position, carrying out tank compression tests, tank bending tests, full tank tests or full tank cryogenic tests. The tanks will also be subjected to a hydraulic pressure test until failure in which no type of fuel will be used and only clean water and liquid nitrogen will be used.
The entire expansion is completed with the auxiliary services area to the activity. Within it is the control area, which will include an office building made of concrete to achieve maximum isolation and in which the tests will be controlled through a network of cameras and screens. There will also be a warehouse to store the rocket so that it is not exposed to the elements once it has been brought to the plant.
Likewise, there will be an electrical distribution booth, which will be prefabricated concrete. The electrical connection will arrive there from the transformation center and from where it will be distributed to the different points.
The installation will in turn include the tank area of liquefied gases -for the new nitrogen and liquid oxygen tanks-, and the bomb zone for collecting rainwater and for testing, as well as the water spray system for testing. Finally, there will be a kerosene storage area, with a 3,000 liter tank.
This entire facility, which does not include industrial activity, has a useful life of 30 years after which the dismantling of both the prefabricated structures and the walls, foundations and pavements is included. Fences and pipes will also be removed, among other actions.
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