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The screenshot below shows FlightRadar24's view of the airspace around Vandenberg Air Force Base at the moment last Friday's Starlink launch hit T-0. The closest airplane was just under nine miles from the launch site; earlier during the countdown, airplanes had circled to within 8.5 miles or so.

How close are airplanes allowed to get?

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(Disappointingly, the Falcon 9 didn't have an ADSB transponder.)

Mark
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This still from the video here https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2019/08/07/what-space-coast-rocket-launches-mean-for-commercial-airline-flights/ shows the Temporary Flight Restrictions for the Eastern Test Range.

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See also Just how "unreasonably gigantic" was the exclusion zone for the scrubbed SpaceX's Transporter-2 Mission first attempt? which presents this image

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Haven't found one for Vandenberg yet, but this twitter account seems to tweet space TFRs as they are posted: https://twitter.com/spacetfrs?lang=en

Organic Marble
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  • If you are in contact with the Range and the launch provider, can you get closer? For example, I would not be surprised to see WB-57s within the TFR for Artemis I. As a stupid example: there is a marine exclusion zone in the splashdown area for Dragon capsules, but clearly, SpaceX ships are operating within that exclusion zone, that's the whole point. So, an exclusion zone does not mean "nobody can be here", but "nobody can be here unauthorized". – Jörg W Mittag Aug 17 '22 at 02:26
  • @JörgWMittag https://i.stack.imgur.com/x1d4t.jpg – Organic Marble Aug 17 '22 at 14:58