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No; all US launches are over ocean to satisfy FAA that you have a very small chance of damaging something on the ground. You could launch over land if you could
by jccooper 11y ago
No; all US launches are over ocean to satisfy FAA that you have a very small chance of damaging something on the ground. You could launch over land if you could prove that your rocket was about as likely to fail as an airliner, but there's currently no such thing.
Vandenburg AFB's launch facilities are good for defense sats because (1) they're from a DoD facility and (2) that's the premier US site for polar orbits. Most surveillance sats do polar or polar-ish orbits because that can put any particular part of the planet directly underneath it several times a day.
SpaceX also has an Air Force pad at Cape Canaveral, but that site is suited only for equatorial orbits, again due to geography. Those are mostly for comm sats, science (incl. interplanetary), and human missions.