Bulgaria Bets on a Soviet Airstrip to Become Europe's Space Hub

A decommissioned air base near Sofia is being reborn as a satellite assembly campus — and Bulgaria is building its case without the ESA.

By The space-quantum Desk

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Earth observation data company Sfera Technologies is watching the project closely. [1]

Dimitrov said Sfera plans to support around a dozen satellites by end of 2026, and in 2027 intends to expand its ground station infrastructure, targeting the EU, the U.S., and Southeast Asia as key markets. [1]

What makes the Bulgarian moment legible is not ambition alone — it is the convergence of institutional will, latent technical talent, and underutilized physical infrastructure, assembled in a country small enough that the entire stack can coordinate.

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I hope that this way we will transform Bulgaria from a country that consumes technologies into a country that creates them.Rumen Radev