7mo ago

What is SpaceX hiding at Vandenberg?

The webcasts for the past three launches out of Vandenberg California haven't gone live until Falcon 9 is well away from the pad. Any guesses as to why SpaceX is suddenly reluctant to show us the pad and surrounding area?

12 comments

It's a military base. The Space Force probably has something there that they want to keep hidden.
- But what? A new space plane? A regular plane? Spy satellites? It's fun to speculate :)
Vandenberg is a Space Force Base, there's going to be times that the military has something on site they absolutely do not want filmed, and SpaceX has no choice but to comply.
It's not like Boca Chica, they don't own the Vandenberg launch site, they lease it from the government.
On top of the general space force argument, there's regulations about filming government sites and operations that get complicated quickly. From fueling to how it got to the pad to what security is on the pad to prevent a sniper from terminating the launch to the fact they don't want to pay for a space force guy to review every camera angle to make sure nothing secret is being shown, etc.
- They've shown those steps before, though, and I can't imagine it has changed much. I think the hypothesis that there is some unrelated secret Space Force activity near the pad seems most likely.
A fully armed and operational vertical integration facility?
- "Oh, I'm afraid this vertical integration facility will be quite operational when your friends arrive."
An army of alien drones, preparing to conquer Earth on Christmas Day. Hiding at Vandenberg and many other military bases around the world.
;)
Or could it have just been so foggy on those occasions that some overworked SpaceX employee decided not to bother with any coverage until the rocket was clear?
- It's weird. For one webcast, they started it while Kate Tice was already mid-sentence with the commentary, so they had obviously planned to have coverage. It seems like SpaceX just forgetting to hit the "go live" button seems most likely at this point.
  Harry Stranger compiled some satellite imagery, and there is no notable activity at Vandenberg:
  https://bsky.app/profile/spacefromspace.com/post/3ld5hexi6lk2y
  https://bsky.app/profile/spacefromspace.com/post/3ld5hf4uib22y
  https://bsky.app/profile/spacefromspace.com/post/3ld5hfcfma22y
  
  Weird. I wonder if the possible CCP spying incident of 2024-11-30 is related.
  If any of the late-starting webcasts happened prior to that date, perhaps Yinpiao Zhou noticed it and was innocently curious. Or perhaps he actually is a spy and his handlers noticed and ordered him to investigate. If not, perhaps some/all of the late-starting webcasts happened because of Zhou's drone flight.
Probably another failure

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