US military greenlights up to 100 SpaceX launches per year from California

a black and white rocket launches into a cloudy sky
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the T1TL-B Tranche 1 mission for the U.S. Space Development Agency from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sept. 10, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Many more rockets may lift off from California next year.

On Oct. 10, the Department of the Air Force approved SpaceX's proposal to launch up to 100 missions annually from Vandenberg Space Force Base, which sits on the Golden State's rugged, beautiful and cloudy central coast.

SpaceX had been cleared to launch just 50 times per year from the site.

The newly announced record of decision (ROD) came after the Air Force released a final environmental impact statement about SpaceX's proposed ramp-up of activities at Vandenberg.

To date, the only SpaceX rocket that has ever flown from Vandenberg is the company's workhorse Falcon 9 — and all of its liftoffs there have been from Space Launch Complex 4-East (SLC-4E).

But the Air Force approval opens Vandenberg to launches of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy as well, from Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6). That pad has not hosted a liftoff since 2022; it will be modified to support both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions, according to an Air Force statement issued on Tuesday (Oct. 14).

The newly granted approval authorizes up to five Falcon Heavy launches per year from SLC-6. But the heavy lifter likely won't actually use 5% of SpaceX's 100-flight quota; the Falcon Heavy hasn't flown in over a year, and SpaceX is working to get an even more powerful rocket online — Starship, a giant, fully reusable vehicle designed to help humanity settle Mars.

The Air Force approval is not the final word on the matter, however. The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial launches, "will issue an independent ROD based on its conclusions," Air Force officials wrote in Tuesday's statement.

SpaceX currently launches rockets from four sites — Vandenberg, Starbase in South Texas, and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which are next door to each other on Florida's Space Coast.

Starbase is the center of Starship manufacturing and testing; it has hosted all 11 of the megarocket's test flights to date. Vandenberg generally supports launches to polar orbits, which are popular for Earth-observation missions. Because Earth rotates in a west-to-east direction, satellites that circle it from north to south eventually see almost all of the planet's surface.

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Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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