Founded by French explorers in the 16th century, Alcântara was later conquered by the Portuguese, who used the small village as a base to take São Luís from the Dutch in 1646.

Helton da Silva Arruda, a famous Brazilian goalkeeper, was born in the town.

The municipality contains a small part of the Baixada Maranhense Environmental Protection Area, a 1,775,035.6 hectares (4,386,208 acres) sustainable use conservation unit created in 1991 that has been a Ramsar Site since 2000.

This building has clean rooms for receiving, testing, fuelling and satellite integration to the launch vehicle payload unit.

On August 22, 2003, an accident occurred when a VLS-1 rocket accidentally exploded, killing 21 Brazilian technicians.