Portugal Licenses First Spaceport with Help from UT Austin Portugal Program
- May 28, 2026
After nearly a decade of planning, the first space infrastructure in Portugal was officially licensed for operation in late 2025. This monumental development received key support in its early phases from the UT Austin Portugal Program, Portugal’s longstanding scientific joint venture with The University of Texas at Austin.
In 2017, the Portuguese government commissioned a team of researchers from UT Austin and The University of Texas at El Paso to lead a feasibility study for a spaceport in the country’s Azores Islands. In August 2025, Portugal’s National Space Authority officially granted the Portuguese Atlantic Spaceport Consortium a license to operate space activities in Malbusca, located on the southernmost island of Santa Maria. It will be the first space infrastructure to be operated on national territory, marking a major development in the country’s path to autonomy in space exploration.
Burke Fort, program manager at UT’s Center for Space Research and leader of the 2017 study, remained involved in Portugal’s space aspirations past the initial study. In 2019, Fort led a “space hackathon” through the UT Austin Portugal Program, inviting Portuguese thought leaders and field experts to visit Austin, compare strengths in the space ecosystem and identify synergies to initiate collaborative efforts.
“There is an amazing amount of talent and energy in Portugal. Exploration is a deeply rooted trait within the people of Portugal, so it is not surprising that they chose to develop the launch facility and the attendant infrastructure needed to further advance that defining pursuit,” said Fort. “The imagination and drive of my Portuguese colleagues, combined with the richness of their amazing universities, is something I cherish and will never forget.”
Recently renewed for a fourth phase, the UT Austin Portugal Program will continue to prioritize space-earth technologies as a core research focus. In January 2026, Brandon Jones, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at UT, traveled to Lisbon to guest lecture for the Master of Business Engineering in Space Systems program at the Instituto Superior Técnico, delivering a seminar on orbit determination and estimation. His visit, supported by the program, marks the genesis of the next chapter of space system knowledge exchange between Texas Engineers and their colleagues across the pondspace system knowledge exchange between Texas Engineers and their colleagues across the pond.
Read the full story on the Cockrell School of Engineering website.
