Miura 5

On Thursday, October 1, 2026, Spanish launch service provider PLD Space signed a bilateral agreement with the French space agency to advance commercial launch infrastructure at the Guiana Space Center in Kokoro, French Guiana.

The partnership establishes a joint technical framework to assess the feasibility of adding a second launch pad at the ELM-DIAMAT complex to support flight operations for PLD Space's Miura 5 and Miura 9 orbital launch vehicles.

The joint initiative aligns with European Space Agency's efforts under the European Launcher Challenge to diversify access to orbit by integrating commercial launch providers into Europe's primary spaceport.

By expanding launch capacity at ELM Diamant, CNES and PLD Space, the aim is to increase mission throughput.

There's a clean room where engineers in masks and hair nets build the avionics, the brain of the rocket.

Then, in the big open area at the heart of the factory, a team of technicians is assembling Miura 5, PLD Space's orbital rocket, piece by piece, section by section, following a labeling system that tells each person exactly where each component goes.

I spoke to one of these guys.

His name is Santiago.

That's the band of space between 200 and 2,000 kilometers above the Earth's surface, and it's where most commercial satellites now operate.

PLD Space plans to increase the rocket's capacity to two tons.

Miura 5 is a dedicated launcher.

Carlos, another PLD employee I met in the factory, describes it as an Uber rather than a bus.