Raul Torres and Chris Larmour They may not be ‘the best friends’, as the first one said, but they have several things in common. Both are CEOs of companies that develop rockets, the Spanish one PLD Space and the British Orbexrespectively, and their companies plan to launch the first orbital rocket in 2025. Larmour, however, It is not very clear that PLD Space can achieve itand a conversation on LinkedIn about the subject has ended up leading to a bet between both that the CEO of Orbex proposed and Torres accepted: 1,000 euros if Miura 5 manages to take off before a year passes.
Miura 5 is a partially reusable two-stage rocketcapable of deploying satellites of up to 500 kilograms in sun-synchronous orbit and 1 ton in low Earth orbit, currently under development. It will be the second rocket from PLD Space after having successfully launched the Miura 1 that performed a suborbital flight last year. For 2026the company has planned a second Miura 5 qualification flight and five commercial launches.
The exchange of views began when Larmour published a table on his LinkedIn account with the average time it takes a European rocket company to make its first orbital launch. In the graph, among other companies, appear Orbex, RFA and Isar Aerospace with a first orbital launch expected in 2025.
But PLD Space is not included in this group and appears with a ‘launch test announced’ sign. by 2025, suggesting that Larmour does not believe Alicante-based PLD Space will be able to pull it off next year. Something with which Torres expressed his disagreement in a reply to the post.
‘Why is PLD Space’s inaugural flight considered different from others? (You said “test launch”, however, the first flight is supported by the Spanish Government)’, says the CEO of PLD Space. ‘We may not be the best of friends, but don’t consider @PLD any different from others… Give us 1 year and you will be surprised‘.
Larmour replies: ‘I have nothing against PLD Space, of course, I wish them the best, but I read their recent outline of planned activities for 2025 and I’m sure a lot of those things can and probably will be delayed for all sorts of internal and external reasons. described in the previous publication. Regarding your “one year” challenge: I’ll bet you €1,000 that the Miura 5 doesn’t take off within a year from today. Do you accept?‘.
Challenge accepted. @PLD_Space will make it happen. https://t.co/pcKaECCouZ
— Raúl Torres🇪🇸 (@RaulTorresPLD) November 15, 2024
Torres accepts, and Larmour then tells him: ‘I will be very happy to pay if you really take off during 2025′.
However, the fact that Miura 5 will not be able to make its first flight before the end of 2025 is not something that only crosses Larmour’s mind. It is not only because of the numerous and difficult challenges that a company of this type must overcome, but, according to NASASpaceflight in its chronicle of the recent presentation of the plans of the Spanish company, to which Larmour linked, the co-founder of PLD Space along with Torres, Raúl Verdú, ‘acknowledges that (the inaugural flight of Miura 5) will probably be delayed to early 2026’.