OIA Backs Spanish Rocket Maker PLD Space in Duqm Launch Bet

The Oman Investment Authority has added a Spanish rocket manufacturer to its growing space-technology portfolio, a move that could bring one of Europe's few operational orbital launch companies closer to flying from Omani soil.

🚀 Key Takeaways

• OIA has invested in PLD Space, a Spanish launch-vehicle maker, through the Spanish-Omani Private Equity Fund II.
• The fund totals OMR 45.6 million (around $118.6 million), with OIA and Spain's COFIDES each committing OMR 22.4 million ($58.3 million).
• PLD Space signed an MOU with Duqm's Etlaq Spaceport in February 2025 to explore launching its Miura 5 rocket from Oman, pending feasibility studies.
• The deal was announced on 30 September 2026 and reported by Oman's official news agency, Times of Oman and Muscat Daily.
• OIA says the investment is meant to transfer space-sector knowledge and capital into Oman, not just generate returns abroad.

💰 What OIA Actually Bought Into

According to Oman News Agency, the Oman Investment Authority has strengthened its presence in the space technology sector by channelling a new investment into PLD Space through the Spanish-Omani Private Equity Fund II. As Times of Oman reported, the specific size of OIA's individual stake in PLD Space was not disclosed, but the vehicle behind it, the Spanish-Omani Private Equity Fund II, carries total committed capital of OMR 45.6 million, split evenly between OIA and Spain's state-backed development finance institution COFIDES at OMR 22.4 million each, with the fund managed by Spain's MCH.

Founded in December 2023, the fund builds on an earlier Spanish-Omani vehicle launched in 2018 with OMR 89.5 million in capital, and its mandate spans manufacturing, tourism, logistics, healthcare, food and agribusiness, energy and telecommunications, as Muscat Daily detailed. Space technology is the newest sector the fund has touched.

Saif bin Hamad Al Mahrouqi, Senior Manager of Joint Government Partnerships at OIA, was quoted by Oman News Agency and corroborated by GCC Business News explaining the rationale behind the deal.

🛰️ Who Is PLD Space, and Why Oman Cares

PLD Space is a 2011-founded Spanish aerospace company based in Elche, Alicante, built by entrepreneurs Raul Torres and Raul Verdu. The company became the first private firm in Europe to successfully launch a rocket in 2023, and it is now developing the Miura 5, a reusable launch vehicle designed to carry small satellites and payloads into low Earth orbit, according to both Times of Oman and Muscat Daily.

The Oman connection predates this investment. PLD Space signed a memorandum of understanding with Duqm's Etlaq Spaceport on 20 February 2025 to explore launching Miura 5 from Omani territory, contingent on commercial and technical feasibility studies, as confirmed by GCC Business News and previously reported internationally by SpaceNews. That MOU made PLD Space one of the earliest signals that Oman's southern coast could host commercial orbital launches, alongside other GCC spaceport ambitions.

Taking an equity position in PLD Space through the joint fund gives OIA a financial stake in the same company Oman's spaceport authority has been courting as a tenant, aligning the sovereign investor's portfolio with the country's broader space ambitions rather than keeping the two tracks separate.

📈 A Sector Oman Has Been Building Quietly

This deal lands just days after Oman's space sector drew fresh attention for a different reason. As AI in Oman reported on the Sultanate's first draft space law, the local sector has grown to 26 registered space companies that have collectively raised RO 74 million. That story was about domestic firms and forthcoming regulation; this new development is a separate transaction, a sovereign fund buying into a foreign launch-vehicle maker that happens to have its own Oman ambitions. Together, the two stories point in the same direction: Oman is trying to build both the regulatory groundwork and the capital relationships needed to become a credible launch and space-investment hub, not just a regulator watching the sector from the sidelines.

🇴🇲 Why This Matters for Oman

For a country without its own orbital launch heritage, buying a stake in an operational European rocket company is a faster route to technical credibility than building capability from scratch. If PLD Space's feasibility studies on Duqm eventually turn into an actual launch contract, Oman would gain a tangible foothold in the global small-satellite launch market, a niche that is projected to grow quickly as demand for Earth observation, communications and defence satellites increases.

There are real caveats. Neither OIA nor PLD Space has disclosed the size of OIA's specific stake, and the Duqm launch arrangement remains conditional on technical and commercial studies that have not yet concluded, more than 18 months after the original MOU. Space infrastructure projects routinely slip, and an equity stake in a rocket maker does not guarantee a launch pad gets built or used. Still, for Omani engineers, students and space-sector entrepreneurs, a sovereign fund putting real money behind a company Oman is already courting as a launch tenant is a more concrete signal than another memorandum of understanding alone.