Vandenberg Shuttle Facilities

[Jim]

Interesting, in view of the now declassified studies on doing that with HEXAGON in space, Blackstar has written about this at TSR. Not sure if we've seen any docs on doing such work on ground and subsequent relaunch.

Never got that far.  No satellite designed for that yet.

I'd have to check my notes, but DAMON was only an active project for about a year. I don't know if they even got to start procurement of long-lead items for that, but it was canceled relatively quickly and they certainly didn't get around to working on the ground servicing part.

For those who don't know: DAMON was a top secret plan to develop a modified HEXAGON camera system and fly it in the shuttle bay. It would take photos over the Soviet Union and then the shuttle would return to Earth, the system would be refurbished, and it would fly again. The plans were for about 2-3 flights per year. It was canceled around late 1980 (need to check that date).

It would have been an “easy” refurbishment.  The OMCF was set up to handle large payloads and propellant s.

[Blackstar]

It would have been an “easy” refurbishment.  The OMCF was set up to handle large payloads and propellant s.

The problem for DAMON would have been designing it so that the film could be threaded through it. When they built the HEXAGON, they threaded film in as they built the camera, and then kept a piece hanging out of the camera so that they could thread in the actual film for the mission.

I don't know how they would have done it with DAMON. Possibly they would have brought the equipment back and kept a piece of the film in the camera and then spliced new film to that for the next mission.

By the way, I originally thought that DAMON was a name from mythology, but was later told that it was "Nomad" spelled backwards, because the NRO guys were Trekkies.

[LittleBird]

By the way, I originally thought that DAMON was a name from mythology, but was later told that it was "Nomad" spelled backwards, because the NRO guys were Trekkies.

So we shouldn't expect to see PYTHIAS declassified, then ;-)

[catdlr]

NSF Article on SLC-6

SpaceX’s SLC-6 redevelopment green light
written by Chris Bergin, October 19, 2025

I'll ask my question from L2 over here:

Why do you think the IPF (circle in red) was not labeled in this picture?  It wasn't marked, and I wanted to know if it would be altered or reused to support SpaceX. That building was missing a flag. Is it out of scope for the renovations?

[Jim]

Why do you think the IPF (circle in red) was not labeled in this picture?  It wasn't marked, and I wanted to know if it would be altered or reused to support SpaceX. That building was missing a flag. Is it out of scope for the renovations?

Because it has been operating as a commercial PPF for the last 35 years or so.  L3Harris currently operates it.

[catdlr]

Why do you think the IPF (circle in red) was not labeled in this picture?  It wasn't marked, and I wanted to know if it would be altered or reused to support SpaceX. That building was missing a flag. Is it out of scope for the renovations?

Because it has been operating as a commercial PPF for the last 35 years or so.  L3Harris currently operates it.

That's what I thought too, thanks as always for a straight answer.   So it wasn't marked on that picture as it's "Out of Scope".  Thanks, Jim,

Tony

[Blackstar]

When I was out there a few months ago I asked about that. I think (and my memory is sketchy) that I was told that SpaceX would like to acquire it, but at the moment they're not getting it. Not sure why. Maybe the current operator is not interested in giving it up, or SpaceX is just going to have to wait for the lease to expire.

I published an article a few months ago about the new museum and I included some photos of the museum's big SLC-6 model. I was standing at that model when we had the above discussion. We were talking about what buildings were likely to be demolished.

[LittleBird]

Why do you think the IPF (circle in red) was not labeled in this picture?  It wasn't marked, and I wanted to know if it would be altered or reused to support SpaceX. That building was missing a flag. Is it out of scope for the renovations?

Because it has been operating as a commercial PPF for the last 35 years or so.  L3Harris currently operates it.

That's what I thought too, thanks as always for a straight answer.   So it wasn't marked on that picture as it's "Out of Scope".  Thanks, Jim,

Tony

See video here: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=58617.msg2641618#msg2641618