The space ambitions of Santa Maria continue to take shape, with yet another company choosing the Malbusca Spaceport as its launch base. The Atlantic Spaceport Consortium (ASC), the company that manages the launch base located on the Azorean island, announced the signing of a multi‑year contract with the South Korean company INNOSPACE.
Founded in 2017, the South Korean company has been at the forefront of that Asian country’s space exploration efforts, with bases in Brazil and Australia — now joined by Santa Maria as its European base.
“The contract guarantees INNOSPACE priority access to a launch pad and allows its HANBIT series of launch vehicles to be sent into orbit from the Azores in the coming years. The South Korean company has developed a family of hybrid launch vehicles, using safe and environmentally clean propellants, called HANBIT, with payload capacities ranging from 90 kg to 1,300 kg, enabling regular and cost‑effective access to space from all continents,” the press release states. For Bruno Carvalho, ASC’s director, the protocol now signed is an honour for the Portuguese company: “This contract aligns with ASC’s vision for an open spaceport, and we are grateful to INNOSPACE for the trust placed in us.”
Quoted in the press release, INNOSPACE’s founder and chairman of the board, Soojong Kim, sees great potential in the Azorean launch base due to the geographical and operational advantages of being located on an island, which will enable the company to expand its global launch network to Europe.
“By connecting launch sites in South America, Oceania, and Europe, we are building a global launch operations structure that allows customers to flexibly select launch locations and orbital trajectories tailored to their mission requirements.”
The partnership, however, goes beyond simple access to the launch site, says INNOSPACE’s CEO, establishing a strategic collaboration “from the infrastructure‑development phase onwards. We are advancing steadily towards our first commercial launch in the fourth quarter of 2026, with the goal of providing highly reliable launch services to customers worldwide.”
Meanwhile, the president of the Portuguese Space Agency, Ricardo Conde, views the newly signed contract as evidence of the potential of the Malbusca launch site.
“INNOSPACE’s decision to launch from Santa Maria is a strong signal of international confidence in Portugal’s space ambitions. This agreement helps accelerate the path toward safe, sustainable, and regulated orbital launch services from the Azores, creating opportunities for high‑value activities in the region.”
In the span of six months, the Atlantic Spaceport Consortium, led by Bruno Carvalho, has reached agreements with two international companies to use the Santa Maria spaceport.
The South Korean INNOSPACE is the most recent, following the Polish company Space Forest, which last July formalised the launch of the Perun suborbital vehicle from Malbusca in May next year.
It is worth recalling that in August, Portugal granted the country’s first licence to operate a launch centre, authorising the Atlantic Spaceport Consortium to run the Malbusca Launch Centre until 2030.
Nuno Martins Neves, "Empresa asiática escolhe Santa Maria para lançar foguetes espaciais", 9 Janeiro 2026, Açoriano Oriental