U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command said Wednesday it conducted a routine reliability flight test of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile at 1 a.m. Pacific time from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.
As in previous tests, the reentry vehicle traveled about 4,200 miles to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command’s Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site at the Kwajalein Atoll.
In November, the Department of the Air Force tested multiple warheads on Minuteman III.
On Wednesday, Vandenberg’s 377th Test and Evaluation Group, DoD’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test organization, “collected and analyzed performance and other key data points to evaluate current missile system competencies,” Col. Dustin Harmon, the group commander, said in an Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) statement.
“This allows our team to analyze and report accuracy and reliability for the current system while validating projected missile system improvements,” Harmon said. “The data we collect and analyze is crucial for maintaining Minuteman III while we pave the way for Sentinel.”
The Boeing Minuteman III, which uses the W78 and W87 warheads, is to be replaced by the Northrop Grumman LGM-35A Sentinel in the mid- to late-2030s.
The Sentinel program will also need to examine the feasibility and extent of re-using equipment, including Minuteman siloes, fielded between 1962 and 1967, to house the thicker Sentinel missiles. Fiber optic, high-bandwidth cables to replace the Minuteman III’s underground network of the copper wired Hardened Intersite Cable System may allow a halving of the number of ICBM Launch Control Centers from the 45 now under the three ICBM bases.
In January last year, the Department of the Air Force said that Sentinel had breached Nunn-McCurdy guidelines, primarily due to construction design changes, and the Air Force last summer rescinded the Sentinel Milestone B engineering and manufacturing development go ahead from 2020.
A version of this story was first published by Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily.
