That reeks of "cover story" to me.
I think so, too. At least there is some significant stuff we aren’t being told.
What kind of communications can go and come from there. DS lost all communication two weekends ago...
Gives the feds a chance to check out everyone in the janitor’s email contacts?
And why close down all the other solar observatories as well?
That reeks of “cover story” to me.
....
I agree. And why was the post office also closed?
he observatory is designed to observe the sun, but it would see other things as well, asteroids, satellites, the ISS, jets, things like that. If a foreign actor managed to put software in the computer system to feed information back to that country it would extend their survailance capabilities. From a scientific basis, it would also enable their science programs at little or no cost. Think of Child Porn as an avenue to download malware into the tracking and observation system of the Observatory.
If you want to be prosaic, monitoring of electrical usage confirmed that the Astronomers were running a Pot growing farm in the subterranean observatory tunnels and that was the reason for the raid.
If you wanted to get crazy, perhaps there was an unauthorized fusion lab in the basement and the FBI was stealing the technology! Or, someone was using the observatory as a quantum entanglement tele-tranporter site with a door whose far-side opened up into a Chinese Lab /strip club. Maybe they were harboring ExTerr Aliens in buckets in the under-observatory?
Numbers 1 and 2 are possible. The others just for the SciFi effect.