“Not without federal (read Trump’s) permission they won’t. California is a state, not a nation.”
Lots of universities and a few high schools have their satellites in space via the CubeSat program.
https://www.nasa.gov/content/past-elana-cubesat-launches
California can rent payload weight/space on anyone’s launch vehicle. Let ‘em launch a hundred satellites via SpaceX, ULA, ESA, India, Japan, Russia or China.
Lots of commercial communications satellites up there. Lots of companies selling “environmental” data, i.e. agricultural forecasts.
Gov. Moonbeam, in the interests of Diversity, get these folks to launch your Truth-Telling_ecoSatellite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6xJzAYYrX8
The Old Negro Space Program
I’m guessing this “CubeSat” is a federal program, right?