On Monday, December 9, US federal agents arrested a Chinese citizen on allegations of flying a drone over the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and capturing photos of the SpaceX rocket launch platform.
The Los Angeles US Attorney’s Office stated that 39-year-old Yinpiao Zhou was arrested on December 9 at San Francisco International Airport as he was preparing to board a flight to China.
Zhou is set to make his initial court appearance in San Francisco next Tuesday, as confirmed by spokesperson Ciaran McEvoy from the Los Angeles US Attorney’s Office.
On November 30, the US Attorney’s Office filed criminal charges against Zhou in federal court in Santa Barbara County.
According to court documents, Zhou is charged with failure to register the drone and intruding into national defense airspace.
Federal agents detailed that on November 30, Zhou flew his drone over Ocean Park near the Vandenberg Space Base, where SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, operates two launch pads for the Falcon 9 rocket launches.
It was noted that on the day of the incident, SpaceX was launching a sensitive payload developed for the National Reconnaissance Office.
The National Reconnaissance Office disclosed that the launch carried out at 3:10 AM on November 30 was successful.
The federal agents charged that Zhou flew the drone over the base for 59 minutes, capturing sensitive military facility areas via photos using an SD card equipped on the drone.
Federal officials found aerial photos of the base after examining the drone’s SD card contents, indicating the photos were taken on November 30 from above the base.
Further analysis was conducted by the FBI on information extracted from Zhou’s phone, revealing searches related to drone regulations at the Vandenberg Space Force Base conducted on December 8.
Additionally, conversations on a WeChat account found in Zhou’s phone, a Chinese messaging and social media app, were centered around photos taken by his drone on October 21 and 22.
The airspace above the base is classified as a national security restricted area by the US.
Zhou admitted to federal agents that he downloaded software for his drone enabling him to bypass national security altitude restrictions.
A federal agent noted that Zhou acknowledged the potential repercussions of capturing images of SpaceX facilities and recognized it might not have been a wise decision.
Per Federal Aviation Administration regulations, any drone weighing over 0.55 pounds must be registered. Zhou was allegedly using a DJI Mavic 2 drone weighing around 2 pounds.
In recent months, mysterious drones hovering over other military facilities in the US have raised concerns among American officials.
On Monday, New Jersey congressman Tom Kean Jr. urged the federal government to take immediate action in response to the increasing unidentified drone activities over New Jersey’s airspace that pose a threat to safety and privacy of residents.
Kean stressed the importance of protecting residents’ safety and privacy from the escalating drone activities and called for the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, and other federal agencies to allocate more resources for investigating and addressing the growing drone activities.