Broglio Space Center
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. 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.
The San Marco platform, with a Scout launch vehicle on the launch pad. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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. While the ground station is still in use for satellite communications, the BSC is not currently used as a launch site.