Türkiye is constructing a rocket launch site in Somalia, a project that would give Ankara an equatorial launch pad for its own rockets and missiles while offering Mogadishu a potential source of revenue and technical skills — though the terms of the deal remain largely undisclosed.
Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır confirmed the project publicly on October 9 at the International Astronautical Congress in Antalya, saying Türkiye was building the facility for its own launch vehicles and for growing global demand. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had confirmed four days earlier that construction was under way, describing it as a contribution to Africa’s space ecosystem. Kacır said feasibility and design work had been completed in December 2025 and described the site as a very large area allocated to Türkiye under its National Space Program. No date has been set for a first launch from Somali soil.
The site at Warsheikh sits about 2.3 degrees north of the equator, closer than Europe’s spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana, which lies at roughly five degrees. A rocket flying east into a low-inclination orbit gains speed from the Earth’s rotation, requiring less energy to reach orbit, and from Somalia’s eastern shore the flight path heads straight out over the Indian Ocean. Kacır said feasibility studies had ranked Somalia as the most favorable location and estimated that an equatorial launch could cost about 30 percent less than a comparable one from Türkiye.
He also set a target: a 400-kilogram Turkish satellite is to reach a 550-kilometer orbit aboard the domestically developed Şimşek-1 by the end of 2027. Whether that mission will fly from Somalia, he did not say. The 2027 target gives the launcher a timetable; the Somali facility has no comparable public deadline.
Türkiye’s relationship with Somalia deepened during the 2011 famine and now spans military training, maritime security and offshore energy exploration. The spaceport extends that cooperation into commercial launches, a business neither country has operated before.
Somalia would not be the first African state to host a launch site run by a foreign partner. In 1967 Italy began launching satellites from platforms off the Kenyan coast near Malindi; nine had gone up by 1988, when launches stopped, though ground installations remained in use. Kenya and Italy renegotiated the arrangement for the Luigi Broglio Space Centre in 2016, with a new agreement taking effect in 2020 that provides for an annual land-use payment starting at $250,000, rising by $50,000 every five years. Kenya is entitled to half the profits from commercial services sold to third parties and retains authority over launch approvals. Yet in 2023 Kenya’s defense minister told a parliamentary committee that Kenyans had yet to see significant tangible benefits.
At Alcântara in Brazil, the difficulties were on land: Quilombola communities displaced by the space program contested the area for decades, and only in September 2024 did a settlement clear the way for land titles. Around Warsheikh, people who live and fish along the coast will have their own questions about access to land and sea once launches begin.
For Türkiye, the prize is launch infrastructure for its own vehicles and an entry point into the commercial launch market. Arif Karabeyoğlu, a board member of the Turkish Space Agency, said at the congress that the spaceport would serve global operators as well as Turkish vehicles — though turning that intention into contracts requires a safety record the facility has yet to build.
Somalia could earn revenue, train engineers and build technical services around the site. How much of that materializes rests on details still out of public view: the length of the lease, the division of earnings, and responsibility when something goes wrong. Liability for damage, including harm to fishing grounds, is easier to agree in advance than to dispute after an accident.
Kacır’s mention of missiles stood out in Antalya. He did not say which systems would be tested at the site or under what rules. Mogadishu will want those answers, and so will any foreign company considering booking a launch, because a site hosting both civilian services and missile launches must decide how safety zones are drawn and who sets the launch calendar. A successful first launch from Warsheikh would be a major achievement for Türkiye; keeping the site busy afterward is slower work, dependent on customers returning and on rules both governments can enforce.
