CALIFORNIA, Feb 19 (Daily Mail) – A joint team of Air Force Global Strike Command Airmen and Vandenberg Space Force Base Guardians successfully launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) equipped with a single telemetered joint test assembly re-entry vehicle from Vandenberg Space Force Base.The Air Force emphasized that Wednesday’s launch was a scheduled exercise and not a response to current world events. Acting Secretary of the Air Force Gary Ashworth stated, “Today’s Minuteman III test launch is just one of the ways the Department of the Air Force demonstrates the readiness, precision, and professionalism of US nuclear forces. It also provides confidence in the lethality and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear deterrence mission.”
The test aimed to collect and analyze performance data to evaluate the current missile system’s capabilities. Col. Dustin Harmon, commander of the 377th Test and Evaluation Group (TEG), noted, “This allows our team to analyze and report accuracy and reliability for the current system while validating projected missile system improvements.”
Launched in the dead of night, the missile traveled at 15,000 miles per hour, covering a distance of 4,200 miles to a test range near Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in approximately 22 minutes. The hypersonic weapon is designed to strike any target worldwide within 30 minutes of launch. Though capable of carrying three Mk 12A nuclear warheads, each packing up to 350,000 tons of TNT, this test involved an unarmed missile.
The missile was randomly selected from F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, transported over 1,300 miles to California, and reassembled for the test. “The Western Range at Vandenberg Space Force Base serves as the primary testing ground for the Air Force Global Strike Command’s ICBM deterrent architecture,” the Air Force stated.
“This test launch is part of routine and periodic activities designed to demonstrate that the United States’ nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure, reliable, and effective in deterring 21st-century threats and reassuring our allies.”
The Minuteman III ICBM, one of two missiles currently used by the U.S., is set to be phased out by 2029 and replaced by the LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM. The new Sentinel system is expected to provide a cost-effective, safe, secure, and effective land-based leg of the nuclear triad, extending its capabilities through 2075.
Meanwhile, two weeks before the U.S. test, Russia demonstrated its nuclear capabilities by practicing stealth maneuvers with Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles in the Volga region. The Russian Defense Ministry released footage of Yars missile launchers moving through a snowy forest, underscoring heightened confrontation with the West over the war in Ukraine.
“The calculations of mobile ground-based missile systems ‘Yars’ perform the tasks of marching up to 100 km [62 miles], dispersal of units with the change of field positions, their engineering equipment, guarding,” the Russian Defense Ministry reported. The ministry added that missile units and subdivisions practiced dispersing in forested areas to enhance secrecy.
