Broglio Space Center
Italian spaceport off the Kenyan coast / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Luigi Broglio Space Center (BSC) located near Malindi, Kenya, is an Italian Space Agency (ASI) Spaceport. It was named after its founder and Italian space pioneer Luigi Broglio.[1] Developed in the 1960s through a partnership between the Sapienza University of Rome's Aerospace Research Centre and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the BSC served as a spaceport for the launch of both Italian and international satellites (1967–1988). The center comprises a main offshore launch site, known as the San Marco platform, as well as two secondary control platforms and a communications ground station on the mainland.
Launch site | San Marco platform | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Location | Malindi, Kenya | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 2°56′18″S 40°12′45″E | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Operator | Italian Space Agency (formerly Sapienza University of Rome and NASA) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Total launches | 27 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Launch pad(s) | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Orbital inclination range | 2.0–3.0° | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In 2003, a legislative decree handed management of the center to ASI, beginning in 2004, and the name changed from the previous San Marco Equatorial Range.[2][3] While the ground station is still in use for satellite communications, the BSC is not currently used as a launch site.[4]