Broglio Space Centre

- 2.938055555555640.212222222222Koordinaten: 2 ° 56 ' 17 "S, 40 ° 12' 44" O

The San Marco platform (San Marco Equatorial Range - SMER, Centro Luigi Broglio Spaziale ), named San Marco, is an Italian rocket launch site off the coast of Kenya for the launch of solid rocket.

Origin of the name

The name derives from a research program at the University of Rome - ago, which was formed from three components (Centro Ricerche Aerospaziali CRA):

• Altitude research flights from Wallops Iceland and the equatorial platform
• Start an experimental satellite San Marco 1 of Wallops from Iceland, on December 15, 1964
• Satellite launches from equatorial platform - first flight with San Marco 2, on April 26, 1967

History

In the period 1964-1988 18 sounding rockets and nine Scout launch vehicles were launched. For example, from the San Marco platform 1972, the X-ray satellite Uhuru ( Swahili for 'freedom' ) was placed in orbit with a Scout rocket. On February 16, 1980 several sounding rockets were launched from this platform to observe a total solar eclipse.

Although since 1988, in particular by the setting of Scout production, no use is known, the launch site is in Russian plans start solid rocket -1 or the European Vega program called, since the approval of the platforms is valid until 2014.

Technical details

The launch facilities consisted of two former oil platforms (Santa Rita and San Marco) and two supply ships that are anchored at a water depth of about 20 meters. The next town on the coast, Malindi. The proximity to the equator is advantageous because less fuel is due to the higher rotation velocity of the Earth with respect to the equatorial distant rocket launch sites needed to reach Earth orbit.