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ESA selects PLD Space to develop the next generation of private European launchers

27 August 2026

PLD Space has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) under the European Launcher Challenge (ELC), a strategic initiative aimed at strengthening Europe’s autonomous, competitive, and resilient access to space. ESA’s selection of PLD Space represents a significant endorsement of the company’s technology roadmap, execution capabilities, and role within Europe’s future launch ecosystem. 

At a time when access to space has become a defining factor of strategic autonomy, Europe is reshaping its launch landscape around resilience, competitiveness, and independence. ESA’s selection of PLD Space reinforces the company’s role as a European launch provider building the technologies and industrial capacity required to secure reliable and sovereign access to orbit. 

The awarded contract, with a total value of €158.9 million, covers Components A and B of the European Launcher Challenge. Component A will support the consolidation of the company’s commercial orbital launch service and the ramp-up of its flight cadence until 2030, responding to growing commercial interest in the MIURA 5 launch vehicle across global market.

Component B, focused on Upgraded Orbital Capacity, will support the development of enhanced capabilities for MIURA 5, designed to serve institutional and commercial missions that require greater payload capacity and orbital reach, as well as incorporate propulsive landing capabilities as a step toward reusability.

The development of MIURA 5’s upgraded orbital capacity is part of PLD Space’s ambitious technology roadmap and represents a strategic step toward MIURA Next, the company’s family of heavy launchers. Key subsystems and upgrades developed under the Upgraded Orbital Capacity program are being engineered for direct transferability to future heavy launch vehicles, allowing PLD Space to accelerate the path toward next-generation launch capabilities while reducing technical risk and maximizing technology investments.

“ESA’s selection of PLD Space confirms the maturity of the roadmap we have been building for years: a European launch capability designed to grow with a bold footprint, with technology, industry and execution under our own control,” said Ezequiel Sánchez, Executive President of PLD Space. “For PLD Space, this contract is not an isolated milestone. It is part of a disciplined execution path: from demonstrating our technology with MIURA 1, to proving orbital capability with MIURA 5, developing its upgraded orbital capacity to scale performance and advance reusability, and ultimately transferring those critical technologies to MIURA Next. This is how Europe builds sovereign access to space: with ambition, but also with execution.”

The selection further reinforces PLD Space’s industrial model, based on vertical integration, robust technologies, and our ‘test-like-you-fly’ approach. This strategy has enabled the company to progress from the successful flight of MIURA 1 to the final stages of MIURA 5 development, while continuing to execute the ambitious technology roadmap publicly unveiled in 2024.

This contract supports PLD Space’s position as one of Europe’s leading private space companies and advances its mission to provide sovereign, resilient, and competitive launch capabilities for Europe in the decades ahead.

PLD Space is an international company on a mission to transport satellites and people into space, vertically integrating the engineering, testing, manufacturing, and operations of its reusable and sustainable rockets. Headquartered in Elche (Spain) and founded in 2011 by Raúl Torres and Raúl Verdú, PLD Space has established itself as a global benchmark in the small satellite launch sector. Its family of MIURA launchers and LINCE crewed capsule position the company as a leader in European technological sovereignty for space transportation, covering the full spectrum of space missions.  

With a team of more than 500 employees, PLD Space operates over 188,000 m² of facilities in Elche, Teruel (Spain), Kourou (French Guiana), and Duqm (Oman), enabling the company to provide comprehensive satellite and payload launch services into space.