- PLD Space launched MIURA 1 in October 2023 — the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket to fly in European history.
- Raúl Torres co-founded the company in 2011 at age 24 in Elche, Spain, with no launch industry, no infrastructure, and no precedent.
- The company has raised over €350 million in total funding, including a €180 million Series C led by Mitsubishi Electric in March 2026.
- MIURA 5, PLD Space’s reusable orbital rocket, is targeted for its maiden flight in late 2026 from Kourou, French Guiana.
460 Employees, €350 Million Raised, and Europe’s Only Private Rocket That Has Actually Flown
PLD Space is the only private launch company in Europe that has put a rocket in the air. That distinction belongs to a 460-person operation headquartered in a 12,500 square-meter facility in Elche, a city in southeastern Spain better known for its palm groves and shoe factories than for aerospace engineering. The company has raised more than €350 million since its founding, secured contracts with the European Space Agency, and built a vehicle pipeline that includes the suborbital MIURA 1 and the orbital MIURA 5.
Its CEO, Raúl Torres, is 38 years old. He has been building rockets since his mid-twenties, and he is not interested in waiting for the rest of Europe to catch up.
A Biology Student From Elche Who Switched to Rockets
Torres was born in 1987 in Elche, a mid-sized city in the Alicante province of Spain. His first degree had nothing to do with space. He studied biological sciences with a specialization in biotechnology at the University of Alicante, graduating in 2010. Somewhere during those five years, the pull of the cosmos won.
He enrolled at the Polytechnic University of Valencia to study aerospace engineering, specializing in propulsion and aerospace vehicles. In 2010, while still a student, he took a research internship at the Centro de Astrobiología, a joint research center of Spain’s national research council and its aerospace technology institute. The crossover between biology and space was deliberate — Torres wanted to understand both the science of life and the machines that could carry it beyond Earth.
”Our strategy was to be very stubborn. This has to be achieved no matter what, and it doesn’t matter the economic or political situation — we’re going to achieve it.” — Raúl Torres
Two Raúls, One Rocket, Zero Industry to Build On
In September 2011, Torres and his friend Raúl Verdú founded PLD Space. Torres was 24. Verdú, a business administrator, would handle the commercial side. Torres would design the rockets. A third co-founder, José E. Martínez, joined the technical team. The company set up its first office in Elche.
Spain had no private launch industry. No supply chain for rocket components. No regulatory framework for commercial spaceflight. The European landscape was dominated by Arianespace, a government-backed consortium launching heavy payloads from French Guiana. Nobody was building small, reusable, privately funded rockets on the continent. Torres and Verdú saw exactly that gap — and decided to fill it from a city most European aerospace executives had never visited.
Their initial plan centered on two vehicles: Arion 1, a suborbital demonstrator, and Arion 2, an orbital launcher. In June 2013, PLD Space secured its first million euros in public funding from the Valencian Finance Institute and Spain’s Center for Industrial Technology Development. The money was modest. The ambition was not.
MIURA 1: The Night Spain Became a Spacefaring Nation
The Arion rockets were eventually renamed MIURA — after the iconic Spanish fighting bull — in 2019, to avoid confusion with Arianespace’s Ariane vehicles. The rebranding marked a shift in confidence. PLD Space was no longer a speculative student project. It was a company with test stands, propellant infrastructure, and a suborbital rocket approaching flight readiness.
On October 7, 2023, at 00:19 UTC, MIURA 1 launched from the El Arenosillo Test Centre in Huelva, Spain. The flight lasted 306 seconds and reached a maximum altitude of 46 kilometers — lower than the planned 80 kilometers due to range safety constraints, but a complete success on every primary engineering objective: engine thrust, trajectory tracking, and launcher behavior. Spain became the tenth country in the world with direct launch capability. PLD Space became the first private European company to fly a liquid-fueled rocket.
”I had dreamed about it many times. The day that happens — whether it’s a total success or partial — it will be the most important day of my life.” — Raúl Torres, on the MIURA 1 launch
€180 Million From Mitsubishi and a Launchpad in Kourou
The data from MIURA 1 validated nearly 70% of the technology slated for MIURA 5, the company’s orbital rocket. Designed to carry up to 500 kilograms to low-Earth orbit, MIURA 5 is a two-stage, liquid-fueled vehicle with a reusable first stage. PLD Space unveiled the first fully integrated qualification unit in early 2026, and the maiden flight is targeted for the fourth quarter of the year from a new launch pad at the CNES-operated spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The funding to get there arrived in March 2026. PLD Space closed a €180 million Series C led by Mitsubishi Electric, with participation from Spain’s Ministry of Science, COFIDES, and Nazca Capital. The round brought total financing past €350 million and positioned PLD Space as one of five companies selected for ESA’s European Launcher Challenge — a program backing commercial launch providers to achieve orbital flight by 2027.
From a Student Office in Elche to a 500,000 Square-Meter Rocket Factory
PLD Space’s growth has been physical as well as financial. The company now operates from a 12,500 square-meter headquarters in Elche that accommodates over 400 employees. In early 2026, PLD Space secured an agreement with the Generalitat Valenciana and the city of Elche to develop a new 500,000 square-meter campus at Porta d’Elx, with an initial phase of 60,000 to 70,000 square meters of built space dedicated to rocket production and testing. The workforce stands at 460 and is expected to nearly double.
Sateliot has signed the first commercial launch contract for MIURA 5. Torres has stated publicly that by 2027, PLD Space expects to conduct six launches per year — a cadence that would make it the busiest private launch provider on the continent.
”We don’t want money for development. We just want contracts.” — Raúl Torres
MIURA 5, a Crewed Capsule Named LINCE, and the Long Road to Orbit
Torres has never framed PLD Space as a company content with small rockets. The long-term roadmap includes LINCE, a crewed capsule designed for human spaceflight — a vehicle Torres personally oversees alongside the MIURA family. He has spoken about wanting PLD Space to cover the full commercial launch spectrum for any country outside Russia and China. The ambition extends beyond European borders and beyond Earth orbit.
Fifteen years in, PLD Space has gone from two engineers with a plan to the most advanced private launch company in Europe. The MIURA 5 flight later this year will determine whether Torres can convert a decade and a half of engineering into regular orbital access. Europe’s space sovereignty may depend on the answer. Torres, characteristically, is not waiting to find out — he is already building the next rocket.
