On 6 August 2026, EnduroSat and the Bulgarian government signed a memorandum for a space industrial park on the site of the former Dobroslavtsi airfield near Sofia. The project's working name is Starbase Europe, and according to company founder Raycho Raychev it is meant to become Europe's largest research and development centre for space and defence. No rocket launches, but satellite assembly, testing and qualification.
What has been agreed
The memorandum is not a building permit but a framework for cooperation. These are the main parameters announced publicly:
- Investment: more than EUR 100 million from EnduroSat, from its own funds and bank financing.
- Phase one: around three years. It covers restoring the runway, a large green area and the first part of the industrial park.
- Purpose: a base for EnduroSat's larger satellites weighing 1 to 3 tonnes, followed by the gradual arrival of other companies from the space and defence sectors.
- The runway: will be repaired and extended, and will continue to serve as a training base for the National Guard Service, as Prime Minister Rumen Radev announced.
- People: the park will need more than 1,000 specialists over the coming years.
Why this matters for Bulgarian deep tech
Space technology rarely develops in isolation. Around it grow companies in electronics, mission control software, data processing, precision engineering and test labs. When a company builds physical infrastructure for testing and qualification, it usually attracts subcontractors who would otherwise look for those services abroad.
One interesting detail: more than 30% of EnduroSat's new engineers come from its own training programme, and a new campus is planned within 2-3 years. It shows that talent shortages can be tackled not only by hiring but through systematic training.
What it means for tech companies outside space
For software and web companies the effect is more indirect, but real. Industrial parks with international clients need multilingual websites, partner portals, application systems and clear digital communication with investors. From a web development perspective, three things are most often underestimated:
- Bilingual or multilingual content with a proper technical structure, not machine translation.
- Careers pages that are indexed well and load quickly on mobile.
- Security and access control, especially when the site serves partners in the defence sector.
If you're preparing a project like this, see how we approach website development with a clear structure and technical SEO built in from the start.
What comes next
Memorandums often look bigger on paper than in the first months of delivery. The real indicators worth watching are the runway permits, the phase one schedule and the first companies other than EnduroSat to move into the park. If those steps happen as planned, Dobroslavtsi could become one of the most interesting tech projects in the region.
Source: Digitalk: EnduroSat signs a memorandum with the government (in Bulgarian). This article is an independent analysis by Penkov Studio.
