VANDENBURG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. – The United States launched a Minuteman 3 missile here at 11:01 p.m. PT on Nov. 5, in a critical test of the weapon’s ability to strike targets with multiple warheads.
Each Minuteman 3 missile, which forms an important part of the US nuclear triad, carries a nuclear-armed reentry vehicle. But the missile tested carried three experimental warheads.
The ICBM test was controlled by an airborne command center in a test of the United States’ ability to launch its nuclear deterrent from a survivable platform.
General Thomas A. said: “These tests demonstrate what strike pilots bring to the fight if called upon by the president,” Bossier, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, said in a statement. “The airborne launch underscores the survivability of our ICBMs, which serve as a strategic backstop to our nation’s defense and the defense of our allies and partners.”
After a US Navy E-6B Mercury aircraft sent the launch command, Minuteman III lifted off from a silo at the launch facility on the north side of this base on the California coast. Airmen from the 625th Strategic Operations Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, were aboard the E-6 with the Navy aircraft crew.
The three returning test vehicles — one high-precision Joint Test Array, carrying non-nuclear explosives, and two objects from the Joint Telemetry Test Array — struck the Reagan test site near Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands about 30 minutes after launch, flight about 4,200. tendency.
“They basically form a dummy warhead,” Col. Dustin Harmon, commander of the 377th Test and Evaluation Group, the country’s operational ICBM testing unit, said in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. “There are two different types. One is telemetry, so it has a radio transmitter, and it has antennas, gyroscopes, accelerometers – all things that can sense motion and motion. We fly them or we can put one in there called high-resolution. “Assembling it is very similar to the actual weapon, except we are using surrogate materials, so we want it to fly similar to the actual weapon… It has explosives that a normal warhead would trigger to explode, but nothing that would drive it.”
The launch on November 5 was a noteworthy test in several ways.
“This launch is actually a one-of-a-kind launch,” Harmon said. “We fly with three warheads, in the north, field missiles only have one. But we want to verify that the weapon system can fly three times because it is a requirement for the missile to be able to do that… and we launch it from the airborne platform.”
The missiles being flight-tested are randomly selected from one of the country’s three ICBM bases — Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. FE Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming; and Minot Air Force Base, ND The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launched in this test was brought from Minot Air Force Base.
“We report to U.S. Strategic Command, and ultimately to the White House, on fleet reliability,” Harmon said. “Firing missiles from here is collecting data.”
The Harmon test group will analyze data from the flight and report back in about a year. Vandenberg’s team examines about 4,000 parameters and several gigabytes of data. The report will serve as a comprehensive description of all of the missile’s systems, said Lt. Gen. Michael J. Lawton, deputy commander of Air Force Global Strike Command.
“You’ll see assessments of all the different stages of the rocket, the subsystems of the rocket, so you’re collecting data on all of those elements, and then you’re collecting data on the payload, the reentry vehicles,” Lawton said. . “There is an important partnership with people at the lower level and our national laboratories that help us with those evaluations.”
There are currently 400 Minuteman III missiles in service in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming.
“We are using an operational missile from the North because we wanted to test the reliability and accuracy of the weapon system,” Harmon said.
Minuteman III test launches are regularly scheduled events that occur approximately three times a year. They were planned well in advance — the missile intended for the next test scheduled for February arrived here recently — although the Pentagon has delayed tests in the past to manage tensions with Russia over Ukraine and with China over Taiwan.
The US government formally notified Russia in advance of the launch in accordance with a 1988 bilateral agreement. More than 145 countries were also provided with advance notice of the launch under the Hague Code of Conduct (HCOC) – an international understanding on launch notifications.
The United States also provided advance notice to China, a Defense Department spokesperson told Air & Space Forces. China notified the United States of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean in September. There is no formal agreement between Washington and Beijing requiring such notifications, but each side has provided them to avoid miscalculations.
“The United States provided this ad hoc advance notification in the spirit of reciprocity in order to encourage the People’s Republic of China to subscribe to the China Code of Conduct and negotiate a bilateral pre-launch notification arrangement between the United States and the People’s Republic of China,” the spokesperson said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. China in short.
The Minuteman III launch, monitored with specialized sensors, is known as the Glory Flight and the November 5 flight was GT-251. The United States last launched an ICBM with three re-entry vehicles in 2023. The United States also conducted an airborne launch that year.
The Minuteman III missile was the first American intercontinental missile to be deployed with multiple warheads. But two of the three warheads on the deployed Minuteman III missiles were later removed, converting them to single-warhead missiles. The move was completed in June 2014 when the United States moved to meet arms control limits agreed with Russia and implement the Pentagon’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.
Concern that the US strategic modernization program could face further delays prompted a congressionally mandated panel last year to recommend that the Pentagon be prepared to load additional warheads to its existing arsenal of Minuteman missiles to maintain current force levels.
The aging LGM-30 Minuteman III has been in operation since 1970, and is scheduled to be replaced by the LGM-35A Sentinel, which has faced significant budget overruns.
“For example, if Sentinel experiences a delay while part of the Minuteman III force expires, warheads from the obsolete Minuteman III could be loaded onto the remaining Minuteman III to maintain a constant field warhead count,” the 12-member committee, which consisted of officials And former experts selected by Democratic and Republican congressional leaders.
The buildup of nuclear power by Russia and China could also prompt the United States to consider loading its deployed land-based and sea-based missiles. The United States currently has 400 Minuteman 3 missiles in operation under the New Start Treaty with Russia, which expires in February 2026. Minuteman 3 is designed to last until the 2030s.
“We’ve been putting off modernization for about three decades, depending on when you count,” Lawton said. I believe we have a responsibility to taxpayers to make sure that the resources we give provide the national security of the nation. This is where we are. …Making sure that all the requirements are installed, that all the requirements fit the mission needs going forward to deter any potential adversaries that are out there and defend the nation.
