Vandenberg Space Force Base on California’s Central Coast has been a quiet outpost for decades, averaging less than 10 rocket launches per year for almost the past 50 years. But that has changed big time in the past couple of years, and last year was their busiest year ever: 66 rocket launches. That trend will continue, as the Air Force authorized up to 100 launches per year from Vandenberg last October. Most of those will be a mid-sized rocket from Space-X – the Falcon 9. But Vandenberg now has authorization for up to 5 much bigger launches: Falcon Heavy, which is essentially 3 Falcon 9’s strapped together. Vandenberg SFB is a long ways from Fresno (~150 miles), yet you can see the rocket if you look carefully… and occasionally a spectacular exhaust plume (a Space Jellyfish) makes an appearance if everything goes right!

Rockets have been launched from Vandenberg SFB, on California’s Central Coast between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, since the late 1950’s. And during the Space Race, Vandenberg was busy, averaging over 30 launches per year during the 1960’s. But the Apollo program ended in the early 1970’s, and launches from Vandenberg declined quickly. Rocket launches dropped to less than 10 per year by the 1980’s, which continued for the next 40 years.

Along with Cape Canaveral, the base was selected in 1972 to launch a new spacecraft being designed: the Space Shuttle. Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6, or ‘Slick 6’) at the south end of the base was prepped throughout the 1970’s and early ’80’s, and was finally ready for launch by 1985. The Space Shuttle Enterprise did fit checks at SLC-6 in early 1985, and a crew was selected for STS-62-A, which was set for a July 1986 liftoff. The Space Shuttle Discovery would have been the shuttle to launch from Vandenberg, the first Space Shuttle launch outside of Florida.

But the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986 changed everything. The Shuttle program underwent a major review; one of the major results from that review was to scrap all west coast launches. The Shuttle Discovery did many launches from Florida, but there never was a Space Shuttle launch from California. SLC-6 launched a few Delta rockets many years later, but overall, Vandenberg Space Force base became quieter and quieter. There were only 3 launches in 2019, and just 1 in 2020.

But things changed rapidly after that. Space X was allowed to launch their rockets from Vandenberg, and they have been busy. The majority of their launches have been their own Starlink satellites – part of their program to have internet provided anywhere on Earth by those Starlink satellites. There have also been a few military launches.

The total number of rocket launches from Vandenberg SFB grew to 47 by 2024, then up to Vandenberg-record 66 in 2025. We’re on pace for over 80 this year – and those numbers will rise even more next year, because last October, the Air Force authorized Space X for up to 100 launches per year from Vandenberg. Vandenberg SFB has been the 2nd busiest spaceport in the world the past couple of years (behind only Cape Canaveral), and it’s looking like it won’t be dropping from there anytime soon.

It’s a wonder that Vandenberg hasn’t been busier in the past, because it’s at an excellent location for launching a satellite into Polar Orbit. Once a satellite is launched to orbit the Earth, it will orbit in one of two different ways: Geosynchronous Orbit and Polar Orbit.

Geosynchronous Orbit is for satellites that appear stationary in the sky above you, like a communications or weather satellite. Gravity wants to pull the satellite back to Earth, while Centripetal Force wants to fling it into space, and a Geosynchronous Orbit balances the two. It doesn’t require much fuel to remain in this orbit, and it’s pretty high above the Earth at around 23,000 miles.

A satellite in a Polar Orbit is in a much lower orbit (around 8000 miles above the Earth), so it’s much better at mapping and taking pictures of the Earth. It moves from North Pole to South Pole while the Earth rotates beneath it, and can map the whole Earth several times in one day. But it’s only over a certain point on the Earth once or twice a day.

So, putting a satellite into Geosynchronous Orbit requires the rocket to launch to the east or west – not north or south. A rocket launched to the east of Cape Canaveral would splash down in the open Atlantic Ocean, away from people, in the event of disaster – which is why rockets are launched there.

A satellite destined for a Polar Orbit must be launched to the north or south, and to the south of Vandenberg SFB lies thousands and thousands of open Pacific Ocean – perfect for an emergency splashdown, if one ever became necessary.