Delta II/Worldview 1 Launch, September 18, 2007 |
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picture below.)
The Worldview-1 satellite was launched from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Delta-II rocket at 11:35 AM PDT on September 18, 2007.
The speed of the action has been increased by 25x in this time lapse movie.
The launch was monitored from this observatory in the Santa Ynez Mountains. During the launch, the observatory dome rotated to follow the rocket like a giant eyeball.
The Delta II rocket rises out of the haze in the Santa Ynez Valley.
Five of the six ground-lit solid-fuel boosters can be seen tumbling behind the ascending Delta II.
A more detailed view of the jettisoned boosters.
Hi-altitude winds twisted the exhaust trail of the rocket.
Photographs of rocket and missile launches
from Vandenberg Air Force Base from 1982 to 1996.
More photographs of rocket and missile launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base from 1997
to the present.
Book about
missiles and rockets available from 
The Missile and Space Race by Alan J. Levine. Here is a history of the development of military missiles and space travel from World War II to the American visits to the Moon in 1969-1972. It stresses the relationship between the early stages of space exploration and the arms race, and that a dual path led to space flight. One was the development of unmanned long-range war rockets, the other, less often noted, was the rocket-powered research plane. The first path led through the intercontinental ballistic missile to the first artificial satellites and space capsule; the latter, more uniquely American, through the X-series and Skyrocket rocket planes to the X-15, and ultimately to the Space Shuttle. The early part of the book focuses on the Soviet-American race to develop the ICBM in the 1950s, and the first satellites, with particular attention paid to the events and reactions that followed the flight of Sputnik I in 1957 and the subsequent missile gap era.
Link to the home page of the 
30th
Space Wing
Call the Vandenberg Air Force Base Launch Hotline at (805) 606-1857 for current launch schedule information.
The So Cal Sky Lights web site has rocket launches and other sky phenomena.
Link to the NASA rocket launch manifest
For national and international space coverage visit SPACE.com
Brian Webb's Rawhide Space Page provides launch schedule and ham radio information.
.
You can buy a 2020 calendar featuring my photographs of rocket launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Photos of thirteen rocket launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base:
Pegasus-XL/Wide-Field Infra-red Explorer (WIRE) March 4, 1999
Atlas-IIAS/Terra December 18, 1999
Delta II/Gravity Probe B, April 20, 2004
Minotaur/Streak September 22, 2005
Titan IV/National Reconnaissance Office satellite, October 19, 2005
Minuteman III, February 16, 2006
Minuteman III, April 2, 2008
Target Launch Vehicle, September 24, 2008
Delta-II/GeoEye 1, September 6, 2008
Delta II/Jason 2, June 20, 2008
Delta II/COSMO-Skymed, October 24, 2008
Taurus/Orbiting Carbon Observatory, February 24, 2009
Delta-II/Worldview 2, October 28, 2009
Put a copy of the Rocket Launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base: 2020 Calendar in your Lulu.com shopping cart for $14.95.
Send a message to Brian.
Go to home page of the Goleta Air and Space Museum.