Kenya to build its own spaceport

Kenya spaceports
Kenya spaceports

The Kenyan government has now initiated a project to establish a second commercial spaceport on the country’s coast, located near the town of Kipini.

As stated in the document made public on December 16, 2025, the government is looking to recruit a skilled transaction advisor who is capable of analyzing the technical, financial, legal, environmental, and social feasibility of the construction of the spaceport based on a PPP model. The strategy utilizes Kenya’s location on the equator, which provides some benefits in satellite launches, among them lower fuel consumption, lower launch costs, and easier satellite placement in low-inclined orbits around the earth’s equatorial region.

…Under the plan, the transaction advisor will prepare a detailed feasibility study in line with the PPP Act, 2021. The study will include concept designs, launch vehicle options, infrastructure requirements, lifecycle cost estimates, and a phased implementation plan for the facility.

As shown on the map to the right, this new facility would be to the north of the San Marco offshore platform that had been used for eight launches by Italy from the ’60s to the ’80s and that the Italian rocket company Avio is now planning to re-open.

The Kenyan government apparently wants to build its own a launch site that it can offer to others to use.

Italy to resume use of its San Marco spaceport off the coast of Kenya

Italy's offshore San Marco spaceport
Click for full map.

Italy has now decided to re-open its long unused San Marco spaceport facility off the coast of Kenya, resuming launches from its off-shore launch platform.

During its active life beginning in 1967 a total of eight launches occurred from this site, with the last flight occurring in 1988.

In late 2023, the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, first proposed reopening the facility for rocket launches. While unsubstantiated by other sources, local publication MalindiKenya.net reported at the time that the move would be used to create an “ideal launch base for the Italian Vega launcher, thus avoiding paying France for the use of the French Guiana base.”

In October 2024, during a presentation just before the 75th International Astronautical Congress kicked off, Minister Urso explained that the country had decided to move ahead with its plans to once again launch rockets from the Luigi Broglio Space Center.

The present plans will have the site managed by the Kenya Space Agency, established in 2017, with Italy providing the rockets and satellites, all of which are expected to be smallsats. It appears that the rocket company Avio, which builds the Vega-C rocket, might be aiming to use this site as an commercial launchpad, thus allowing it to bypass the French-run French Guiana spaceport. Located close to the equator and on the coast, this site would offer satellite companies a very wide range of orbits.