Post

OCTOBER 2026

PLD AEROSPACE ORBITAL LAUNCH ATTEMPT FAILS, BUT DETERMINATION AND RESOLVE FORGES ONWARD

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| _{MADRID - A young woman in her late thirties with long black hair and surrounded by security agents in suits with their guns hidden looks skyward before pulling a pair of binoculars up to her eyes. Instituto Nacional de Aeronautica (INDA) director Pedro Duque, a retired ESA astronaut who also previously served as the Minister of Science and Technology for the Spanish Government, approaches Former Prime Minister Augustina Torres, who squints through the binoculars. Duque adjusts the binoculars to face the rocket screaming skyward before looking up himself and smiling. Torres, although not holding any political office at the moment, was representing Prime Minister Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo at PLD Aerospace's first orbital launch attempt. The Prime Minister was unable to attend as she, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, and Her Royal Majesty Queen Leonor were attending a conference in Casablanca with the Maghrebis, and Deputy Prime Minister Sanchez - who for the past few weeks had been receiving calls for his resignation - was surrounded by too much controversy to attend such a historical spaceflight event. The rocket continues spaceward as the engineers and technicians in Mission Control stare intently at their consoles. At T+ 3:35:41, the Propulsion Officer (PROP) reports a red mark, which signifies that something has gone wrong on the vehicle. The mission director ran to the PROP's desk and ordered the Flight Ordinance Officer (FOO) to abort the mission using the range safety detonation, but as the FOO made his way to his computer the screens went dark. A collective gasp erupted from the gathered crowd, mainly PLD Aerospace employees, government officials, and Spaniards from the nearby city of Cadiz. As the PROP and the mission director rushed outside the control building, they ran into Augustina Torres who informed them of what had happened. "It exploded, Jose." said Torres, out of breath, before getting escorted by her officers away from the launchpad and into her government vehicle. Local police officers were also rushing around, ordering the civilians to evacuate as soon as possible to reduce the risk of fatalities due to falling debris. Sure enough, as the two controllers looked up, a faint grey blob of smoke could be seen hovering in the air, with small streaks of smoke falling downwards, towards the ocean. Days after, INDA announced that the cause of the mission accident was a combustion failure in the rocket's first stage. Although the mission had failed, a group of PLD Aerospace and INDA engineers made a joint statement on social media outlet Twitter stating, 'The flight to the cosmos is dangerous and hard. The road to space is a rough one, but we will persevere and fight to succeed!'. Although the mission had failed, and a second attempt was at least three months away, determination and resolve has forged onward, leading Spain along the path to the cosmos.} |

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