Military officials have rejected requests from state agencies to better monitor and mitigate the impact of rocket launches and sonic booms at Vandenberg Space Force Base, frustrating local officials and escalating tensions between the U.S. Space Force and the state agency responsible for protecting California’s coast. tensions between them.
SpaceX, a prime contractor for the Space Force, hopes to quickly increase the number of rockets launched from military bases in Santa Barbara County. However, the company has not yet sought the commission’s approval; instead, Space Force officials have been negotiating with the California Coastal Commission for months on a plan to allow 36 launches from the base this year – more launches than allowed under previous agreements. six times.
As part of those talks, the national committee asked the Space Force to more closely track and document how explosions affect wildlife and consider ways to reduce the harm from sonic booms. The committee cannot impose its will on the military — it can only ask the Space Force to cooperate.
The normally tame monthly meeting turned tense at Thursday’s committee meeting after military officials declined additional monitoring and mitigation measures and Space Force officials refused to answer questions.
Committee members were visibly annoyed.
“I’m very angry,” Commissioner Susan Loberg said. “I don’t understand why our own government is turning its nose up at another branch of our government.”
“I hope this commission will not be bullied into neglecting environmental protections,” Commissioner Christina Kunkel said.
The jarring meeting came two months after Space Force officials acknowledged for the first time that sonic booms from rocket launches from the base regularly unsettle residents and wildlife along about 100 miles of coastline in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties. . Recent changes in rocket trajectory have made sonic booms more common for residents of the Outback, and Space Force officials say they hope to significantly increase the number of rocket explosions each year.
This dramatic growth has been driven largely by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The company is currently headquartered in Hawthorne, but according to Musk, those offices will be headed to Texas.
A spokesperson for Vandenberg Space Force Base told the Times that the headquarters transfer will have no impact on the number of rockets SpaceX plans to launch from the California base. SpaceX still plans to launch more than 90 rockets there by 2026.
On Thursday, a state board approved an increase in launches and new requirements for the Space Force to increase monitoring of wildlife on and off base and analyze the impact of sonic booms on wildlife such as southern sea otters, California red-legged frogs, western snowy plovers and California Least Tern.
The seven conditions the committee seeks to impose include a requirement for a written plan to minimize the impact and extent of sonic booms, a light management plan for nighttime emissions to limit the scope of lights facing beach areas, and steps to provide more information about the emissions. and its impact on beachgoers and fisheries.
The Space Force was already responsible for monitoring the impact of launches on the base, but board officials insisted that the apparent increase in rocket launches and the effects of the sonic booms reaching more than 100 miles of the California coast represented a significant change from the base’s previous conditions. Call for broader protection.
Several commissioners said their goal was not to stop rocket launches but to track their possible impact on the coast.
“We don’t want to stop the rockets, we don’t want to stop their satellites, and we certainly don’t want to cause any type of defense issues,” Commissioner Dayna Bochko said, visibly frustrated. “But this is ridiculous.”
On Thursday, Vandenberg officials said they had taken steps to protect the coast.
“Our goal is to balance our mission requirements with state regulatory agencies,” said Col. Dorian C. Hatcher, the base’s deputy commander for operations. “We are protecting Vandenberg’s environment. We do this and will continue to do so because we are committed stewards, responsible community members and recognize that it is not only our responsibility but our obligation.
However, as they have done in previous meetings, Space Force officials rejected requests for additional monitoring and mitigation measures. That refusal, coupled with their refusal to answer questions on Thursday, appears to have put the state agency on a collision course with the Defense Department.
“The Space Force came here and intentionally disrespected us,” Bochko said. “It’s okay. Sometimes I disrespect you.
But what that means for the future, and whether base officials will be willing to comply with the monitoring despite their previous objections, remains unclear. The Space Force has the authority to move forward with rocket launches without an agreement with the Coastal Commission.
The commission issues or denies development permits as part of its responsibility to protect the state’s coastal resources. But the committee cannot deny plans by the Department of Defense or other federal agencies to use federal property near the coast. Instead, the commission is tasked with reaching agreements with the federal government to mitigate issues such as beach access and potential harm to marine life.
The Air Force’s position, according to the committee staff report, is that base officials already monitor wildlife and environmental impacts in compliance with U.S. Fish and Wildlife and marine mammal protection requirements. But committee staff, citing equipment malfunctions and other errors, argued that the Space Force’s previous monitoring efforts resulted in major gaps in the data and that the service’s report lacked analysis of the launch’s impact on wildlife on and off the base.
Staff also pointed out that the military recently admitted that sonic booms from rocket launches are more frequent and affect much wider coastal areas than previously acknowledged.
Cassidy Terfel, the commission’s deputy director, said Thursday that Vandenberg’s staff has delayed efforts to increase wildlife monitoring, largely because of cost concerns.
“What’s more expensive than destroying the environment and then trying to fix it?” Bochko said Thursday before turning off the microphone. “I’m disgusted.”
Relations between the Space Force and the state commission appeared to have been strained when Space Force officials first approached the commission in May 2023 to increase the number of rocket launches to 36 from the previously agreed-upon six.
Even before the request was submitted, SpaceX had already exceeded the number of rocket launches allowed. In 2022, the company conducted 13 launches from Vandenberg.
Committee staff are also considering the possibility of requiring SpaceX to seek permission for commercial, non-military launches from Vandenberg, rather than having the Space Force seek all launch agreements on the basis that the company is a government contractor.
According to committee staff, only about 13% to 20% of SpaceX launches involve DoD activities. Instead, the vast majority are for commercial purposes, primarily for Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband provider.
Vandenberg officials believe that all SpaceX launches benefit the Department of Defense not only because the department uses Starlink, but also because SpaceX’s ability to quickly launch more rockets into space benefits the department’s goals.
Space Force officials also dodged questions about sonic booms at previous committee hearings, telling members that their models had them occurring primarily over the Channel Islands. It was during the commission hearing that residents began reporting they experienced sonic booms as far away as Los Angeles County.
Base officials later said that recent changes in the rocket’s trajectory had shifted some of the sonic booms over the mainland, making them heard and felt about 100 miles away from the coast.
Bochko said the Space Force has been “misleading” about sonic booms and has been unwilling to cooperate with national agencies.
“I think they don’t want to monitor, they don’t want to find out the impact because they’re not going to do it,” she said.
