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The Rocket Launch Site in Kenya Which Kenyans Don't Know About
by info
Posted on Monday, March 05, 2012 11:02 PM
This will come as a surprise to most Kenyans, there is a spaceport near Malindi, Kenya, by the name Luigi Broglio Space Centre (BSC). The centre comprises a main offshore launch site, known as the San Marco platform (pictured below, San Marco is Italian for St. Mark), as well as two secondary control platforms and a communications ground station on the mainland.
The San Marco platform was a former oil platform, located to the north of Cape Ras Ngomeni on the coastal sublittoral of Kenya, close to the equator (which is an energetically favourable location for rocket launches). Launches from the platform were controlled from the Santa Rita platform, a second former oil platform located southeast of the San Marco platform, and a smaller Santa Rita II housed the facility's radar. A ground station located on the cape forms the centre's primary telemetry site.
The launch team, trained by NASA, was to first launch a rocket from Wallops Island under NASA supervision and first launch successfully took off on 16 December 1964. The San Marco project was focused on the launching of scientific satellites by Scout rockets from a mobile rigid platform located close to the equator. This station, composed of 3 oil platforms and two logistical support boats, was installed off the Kenya coast, close to the town of Malindi.
The program schedule included three phases:
- Suborbital launches from Wallops Island and the equatorial platform,
- Orbital launch of an experimental satellite from Wallops Island,
- Orbital launches from the equatorial platform.
The San Marco launch platform complex was in use from March 1964 to March 1988, with a total of 27 launches, primarilysounding rockets including the Nike Apache, Nike Tomahawk, Arcas and Black Brant launchers. Low payload weight orbital launches were also made, using the solid-propellant Scout rocket (in its B, D and G subvariants). The first satellite specifically for X-ray astronomy, Uhuru (pictured below), was launched from San Marco on a Scout B rocket on 12 December 1970.
Uhuru was the first satellite launched specifically for the purpose of X-ray astronomy. It performed the first comprehensive survey of the entire sky for X-ray sources. Uhuru achieved several outstanding scientific advances.
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