[Suicide Junkie]

Maybe, you should have to have a spaceport, shipyard, or 'enhanced' cargo facility, in order to put mines and stuff in orbit.

OTOH,
I imagine it would be fairly easy to have fighters with VTOL, but runways are really cheap too. You could use civilian airports, roads or highways as runways for fighters, and not have to worry.

If its got its own engines, it seems reasonable to assume it can take off on its own.

The problem is when the item you're launching dosen't have its own engines. If you launch something from the surface without engines, there are few options.
- Goes up & comes down. Crunch. No good.
- Fling it hard enough that it doesn't come back down. The sat goes off into space, and dosen't stay in the area long. no good
- use a moon to slingshot the object into orbit. Most planets don't have moons in SE. There would also be a good chance of the moon later flinging the object in or out.