The California Space Authority (CSA) offers its congratulations to Vandenberg Air Force Base (Vandenberg AFB) on its fiftieth anniversary. On October 4, 1958, Cooke AFB was renamed Vandenberg AFB in honor of the late General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, the Air Force's second Chief of Staff. Presently operated by Air Force Space Command's 30th Space Wing, Vandenberg AFB supports a variety of aerospace missions and customers. It is the only military base in the United States from which unmanned government and commercial satellites are launched into polar orbit. This is also the only site from which land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles are test fired into the Pacific Ocean. The photo shows the Vandenberg AFB successful launch of a Delta II rocket from Space Launch Complex-2 at 11:51 a.m. on Sept. 6th. The rocket carried the GeoEye-1 Satellite into orbit where the satellite will begin its mission of collecting multispectral or color images of the Earth for both government and commercial organizations. (Photo by Joe Davila)