Nearly a mile above Vandenberg Space Station in Santa Barbara County, a hacked drone hovered in restricted airspace for about an hour.
The lightweight drone photographed sensitive areas of the military installation on November 30, including a complex used by SpaceX, according to federal investigators.
The drone then returned to the ground, where the pilot and another man waited in a nearby park.
Four military base security officers arrived at the scene and asked the men if they had seen a drone flying over the area, unaware that one of them had hidden the drone under his jacket.
Authorities identified the man as Yinpiao Zhou, 39, a Chinese citizen and legal permanent resident of the United States. He was accused of failing to register the drone and flying it over restricted airspace to take photos of the military base, the U.S. attorney said. office announced Wednesday.
On November 30, military base personnel detected the drone and determined that it had taken off from nearby Ocean Park to the north. The drone traveled south near Surf Beach and then directly toward Space Launch Complexes Three and Four, according to court records.
The drone flight took place several hours after the base hosted the launch of a SpaceX rocket carrying a spy satellite for the federal government.
When security personnel arrived at the park that day, Zhou told them he saw a drone, but did not see the pilot, according to court records. He said this while his hands were in his pockets; When he removed them from his jacket at the request of security personnel, he exposed the drone, federal investigators said.
When asked why he lied, Zhou said he was worried the security personnel were with the military, according to court records.
Security personnel then asked to see the images captured by their drone. When they saw it included parts of the military base, they asked him to remove it, which he did, according to court records.
Court records suggest Zhou knew he was prohibited from flying in the base’s airspace. A month earlier, Zhou allegedly searched for “Vandenberg Space Base drone rules” on his phone, then told another person in a message that he could hack his drone to reach higher than he otherwise could steal, according to an affidavit filed Sunday in the Central District of California.
The affidavit alleges that Zhou admitted to federal agents that he purchased software online that allowed his drone to reach higher altitudes and enter no-fly zones. He also failed to register his drone with the Federal Aviation Administration and did not have a license to operate the device, according to federal prosecutors. He also admitted to once getting in trouble for flying his drone into a no-fly zone in Shanghai.
Zhou and the man he was with, who was not named in court documents, had spent the night at a campground in the Big Sur area of Monterey County on November 28. The two arrived at Ocean Park the next day and heard about the SpaceX launch. at the military base on November 30. Zhou admitted to recording the launch with a handheld camera.
Zhou, who lives in Brentwood, entered the United States on an immigrant visa on Feb. 12 and plans to return to China around Dec. 9, along with the other man who accompanied him to the park, the department said of Justice. This person arrived in the United States on November 26 on a visitor visa, according to federal investigators.
In October, Zhou sent images he had taken with his drone of a city and mountains to someone via the messaging app WeChat, federal prosecutors alleged. He pointed out the elevation of the images, with one image taken at 1,800 feet and another at 8,000 feet.
“Oh wow, the damn thing flies [sic] high,” the other person replied to Zhou.
“I hacked my drone. It’s not supposed to go that high lol,” Zhou responded, according to federal prosecutors.
Zhou later admitted to federal agents that photographing SpaceX facilities on the military base was “probably not a good idea,” according to court records.
Authorities say Zhou flew his drone outside of visual line of sight, which would require him to register the drone with the FAA. Data collected by the drone shows it flew about 1.8 miles from Ocean Park, then nearly a mile away at its maximum height.
Zhou was arrested Monday at San Francisco International Airport before he could board a flight to China, and he appeared in a San Francisco courtroom Tuesday. He has not pleaded guilty and is expected to be arraigned in Los Angeles in the coming weeks, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
