The following report was provided by Jay, Behind the Black’s stringer who furnishes me the daily “Quick Space Links.” He describes his experience working at Vandenberg for ULA two weeks ago.

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I was called upon to be the commissioning engineer for our company’s SLC-3 project for ULA at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. We have been doing critical infrastructure projects for close to two decades now. The regular engineer that had this as his territory was gone and I was his backup. I was sort of bribed to go to the site with the possibility of seeing two launches. I accepted, and tickets were booked for the project engineer and me.

An uneventful flight to Santa Barbara and we drove up to stay in Santa Maria. The next day we arrived on base at the north side to get our ID cards and off to SLC-3 (pronounced Slick-3). We traveled through the north base, where all the missiles are tested on that side and SLC-2. Many old buildings that have signs associated with older missile programs, some repurposed for newer programs, and a big new building for the Sentinel program.

SLC-3

We crossed a California road, which splits the base in two, and re-entered to the south base, got checked again, and proceeded to SLC-3. Driving for ten minutes, there it was, a great big building, SLC-3 (formerly called SLC-3E, E standing for “east”). They originally had two towers there, an east and a west, but they demolished the west one many years ago. Just for record, all these photos were taken in areas where photos can be taken, outside at a distance, and no photos were taken inside the secured areas.

The work we were doing was near the tower close to the 227,300-gallon liquid oxygen tank. That tank was a monster in size. I cannot talk about the specific work we were doing, but it is for the refurbishment of SLC-3 to launch ULA’s Vulcan rocket. Looking further west above the hill, once the marine layer cleared (fog), I saw the nose-cone to a Falcon-9 at SLC-4 a mile away. Since it was a launch day, they began kicking out contractors at 3PM.

Falcon 9 as seen from ULA’s SLC-3 launchpad

SLC-6 during on-going demolition by SpaceX

Since we had an hour before they kicked out every contractor on the south base, we decided to get a close look at the Falcon-9, and I took some pictures from the road. It was quite a sight for me. After that we went down to the famous beach the California Coastal Commission was supposedly protecting from SpaceX. Once there I was yelled at by the “Beach Keeper” to not step on the plants. I was surprised to see an Amtrak stop at that beach… that’s California for you.

We managed to get off the south base in time and re-entered the north base. The launch was at 8 pm, so we had some time to kill and the engineer I was with had done a couple projects with our other engineer, so she showed me some of the sites. The sites were our other past projects, and the many Atlas launch sites. The picture to the right was as close as I could get to one of the abandoned Atlas sites.

It was getting close to 8pm and we drove to a spot on the north base that could see both SLC-3 and SLC-4, five miles away. I noticed that the marine layer was moving in and I began to curse it. Luckily it did not come in any further and the launch went off without a hitch.

It was loud as the rocket shot south carrying its payload of Starlink satellites.

Throughout the week and a half we were there, we would show up, SLC-3 would be hidden in the fog until 10 am, and it was always 57 degrees Fahrenheit. I was told this time of year it is the beginning of their winter and I laughed thinking they were pulling my leg. I remembered the quote Mark Twain that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco, and I found later that he did not make that quote.

There was another Falcon 9 launch while I was there, but it was early in the morning during our work. I did not see it but I sure heard it. SLC-3 is only a mile from SLC-4, and the sound of the launch vibrated everything on the site.

Sometimes at the end of the workday we would explore the south base. I really wanted to see SLC-6, the site that was to launch the shuttle from the west coast [but never did]. My friend got to see the demolition and the picture to the right shows some of what is left. [Ed: For a pre-demolition picture and video of the controlled demolition, go here.) There is talk now from people on base that SpaceX might want to launch Starship there.

There is one thing that SpaceX is refurbished at SLC-6 rather than tearing down. The shuttle processing buildings have been converted to work on the returned Falcon-9 boosters.

NASA’s payload processing facility

Vandenberg from the air

Next to SLC-6 is SLC-8, where the solid rocket Minotaur is launched, but it was just a stand, and not much to see. After this, we headed out to Lompoc for dinner and drove by the place where NASA has their payload processing area. I did not know that the Mars Insight mission was launched from SLC-3.

Towards the end of the project, we had to pay our respects to Vandenberg’s chief engineer. Like I said, we did a lot of work on the base in the past and dropped in to say hello. I talked to him for two hours, learning only a little of the base’s history. For instance, the mission control building for SpaceX used to be the astronaut area for the shuttle, and before that it was the building for the MOL (Military Orbiting Laboratory).

The history of this base is extraordinary, but I think its future will be greater. I see LOX trucks going in, but there are also fuel- and LOX-making facilities on site and it is getting bigger. The other SLC sites are being leased and refurbished for commercial use. Last picture to share is us flying over Vandenberg; at the center is SLC-3 and the marine layer coming in.