(Previous Page) SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg AFB on the evening of December 22, 2017. The shutter was open for 136 seconds. This was taken from Coal Oil Point just west of Isla Vista.
When people think about rocket launches, many will immediately think of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA's primary launch center for human spaceflight, and in more recent years, a spaceport used by commercial operations such as those undertaken by SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. Residents of Santa Barbara County, and to a large degree surrounding areas, have a special opportunity to view launches thanks to the presence of Vandenberg Air Force Base, located north and west of Lompoc, about 40 miles from Isla Vista as the crow flies. Launches from Vandenberg generally fly southward, allowing payloads to be placed into polar orbit, often advantageous for weather, Earth observation, and reconnaissance satellites (such an orbit is difficult to reach from the Kennedy Space Center, where launches must fly eastward to avoid population centers). With a little planning, launches from VAFB are easy to view. The best starting place is to monitor online resources such as S P A C E F L I G H T N O W , which maintains a schedule of upcoming launches wordlwide, or S P A C E A R C H I V E , a well maintained database of all past and upcoming launches at VAFB. As of January 2018, 5 launches are slated to occur in the first 5 months of the year, consisting of a classified payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, Iridium commercial communications satellites, and in May, a robotic Mars lander designed to study the subsurface of Mars (the InSight project).
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(Left) A United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket rises from the pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base on 12 January 2018 carrying a payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office.