The Navy’s Strategic Systems Program conducted four missile test flights of unarmed Trident II D5LE missiles from an Ohio-class nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) off Florida’s east coast from Sept. 17 to 21.
The tests were launched from a submerged SSBN and landed in a “broad ocean area of the Atlantic Ocean,” the Navy said.
The scheduled tests are meant to evaluate and ensure continued reliability and accuracy of the missile system.
The Trident II D5 has now completed 197 total successful missile flight test launches.
The Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile is a three-stage missile currently deployed on U.S. Ohio-class and U.K. Vanguard-class submarines and will be carried aboard U.S. Columbia-class and U.K. Dreadnought-class submarines in the future. According to Lockheed Martin, the aim of the Trident missile is to ensure the Columbia-class submarine’s strategic weapons system is credible until 2084.
During a deployment, the missile would be tipped with either legacy W88 warheads – a Trident can carry up to eight — or the W76 warhead designed by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The newest versions of the warhead, the W76-2, are manufactured at the Pantex Plant in Texas.
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily first published a version of this story.