☼ Point Conception Lighthouse, CA
Satellite Coast
The
Research Project
The Satellite Coast Research Project explores how commercial satellite launches shape life along California’s central coast. Centered in Lompoc, CA the project focuses on the experiences of Indigenous Chumash communities, farmworkers, and incarcerated people living near Vandenberg Space Force Base. Through community-driven research, the project brings forward perspectives often left out of conversations about aerospace and technology, connecting local impacts to broader systems and futures.
● About The Satellite Coast Project
Community-Informed
Research.
Working alongside community partners, the project uses interviews, focus groups, and correspondence to document how residents understand and respond to the rapid expansion of satellite launching in their region. These stories surface the lived realities behind infrastructure often seen as distant or abstract, revealing how noise, emissions, labor, and land use are experienced on the ground. By centering these perspectives, Satellite Coast supports community awareness, advocacy, and dialogue, while contributing new insights to research on technology, environment, and social equity.
● The Launch Site: Vandenberg Space Force Base
Vandenberg Space Force Base has evolved from a Cold War missile testing site into one of the primary launch hubs for today’s commercial and government space missions. In recent years, launches have surged dramatically, with myriad consequences for local communities.
● Local Communities and
The Impacts of Launch
● Local Communities
Lompoc Community
This case study examines the overlooked intersection between the California Central Coast's agricultural community and the burgeoning aerospace industry centered at Vandenberg Space Force Base. While frequent satellite launches signal technological progress, their impact on the immigrant farmworkers essential to the nation's food supply remains largely unexamined. Utilizing ethnographic methods and in-depth interviews with 50 farmworkers, this research centers the voices of those working the land beneath the flight paths. The study investigates how these essential workers perceive the environmental, economic, and social consequences of space exploration—ranging from potential impacts on soil and health to the symbolic significance of these launches in their daily lives. By identifying gaps in communication and information accessibility, the project aims to foster a more inclusive understanding of regional development and ensure farmworker perspectives are integrated into future policy and planning.
Federal Correctional Complex Lompoc
● Incarcerated Persons
This case study investigates the experiences and perspectives of men incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex in Lompoc (FCC Lompoc) relative to the commercial satellite launches conducted at the adjacent Vandenberg base. Drawing on critical carceral studies and STS, the project, led by Co-PI Wasow, takes the spatial and historical adjacency of two federal institutions — a prison complex and a launch complex — as its analytical frame. Through written exchanges and periodic in-person meetings, the project brings incarcerated participants into STS scholarship as producers of knowledge about satellite launching, rather than only as the "testing ground" for new technologies.
● Flora and Fauna
Pacific Coastline
This case study collaborates with federally recognized and unrecognized Chumash communities in the Lompoc area to investigate the social, cultural, and environmental impacts of commercial satellite launching at Vandenberg. Combining focus groups and interviews with archival and historical research into the archaeological excavation of Chumash sites on the base, the project engages Indigenous knowledge, cosmologies, and lived experience of regional aerospace infrastructure alongside Chumash partners. Building on historical commentaries by Chumash leaders and recent NOAA partnerships around the Chumash marine sanctuary, it surfaces perspectives often overlooked in STS scholarship and rethinks sociotechnical relations of adjacency, diversity, and cosmology in the expanding commercial space economy.
In 2025, at Vandenberg, there were
More than
70 Launches
Working alongside community partners, the project uses interviews, focus groups, and correspondence to document how residents understand and respond to the rapid expansion of satellite launching in their region. These stories surface the lived realities behind infrastructure often seen as distant or abstract, revealing how noise, emissions, labor, and land use are experienced on the ground.
● Contact
Request Information
Have a question, idea, or interest in collaborating? We’d love to hear from you. Whether you’re a community member, researcher, educator, or organization, reach out to learn more about the project, share your perspective, or get involved.