Behind the Scenes at a Minuteman ICBM Test Launch (airandspaceforces.com) 61
Tuesday at California's Vandenberg Space Force base, the U.S. launched a Minuteman III missile, "in an important test of the weapon's ability to strike its targets with multiple warheads," according to Air and Space Forces magazine:
The Minuteman III missiles that form a critical leg of the U.S. nuclear triad each carry one nuclear-armed reentry vehicle. But the missile that was tested carried three test warheads... The intercontinental ballastic missile (ICBM) test was controlled by an airborne command post in a test of the U.S. ability to launch its nuclear deterrent from a survivable platform.... Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere, the commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, said in a release: "An airborne launch validates the survivability of our ICBMs, which serve as the strategic backstop of our nation's defense and defense of allies and partners...."
The three test reentry vehicles — one high-fidelity Joint Test Assembly, which carries non-nuclear explosives, and two telemetry Joint Test Assembly objects — struck the Reagan Test Site near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands roughly 30 minutes later after launch, a flight of about 4,200 miles. "They make up essentially a mock warhead," Col. Dustin Harmon, the commander of the 377th Test and Evaluation Group, the nation's operational ICBM test unit, said in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. "There's two different types. One is telemetered, so it's got a radio transmitter in it, it's got antennas, gyroscopes, accelerometers — all the things that can sense motion and movement. And we fly those or we can put one in there that's called a high-fidelity. That is assembled much like an actual weapon would be, except we use surrogate materials, and so we want it to fly similarly to an actual weapon. ... It has the explosives in it that a normal warhead would to drive a detonation, but there's nothing to drive...."
The U.S. 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 — an international understanding on launch notifications. The U.S. also provided advance notice to China, a DOD spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. China notified the U.S. of an ICBM launch over the Pacific Ocean in September. There is no formal agreement between Washington and Beijing that requires such notifications, but each side provided them to avoid miscalculations.
Test launches happen three times a year, according to the article, yielding "several gigabytes of data" about reentry vehicles, subsystems, and payloads. "There are 400 Minuteman III missiles currently in service across Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike for sharing the article.
The three test reentry vehicles — one high-fidelity Joint Test Assembly, which carries non-nuclear explosives, and two telemetry Joint Test Assembly objects — struck the Reagan Test Site near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands roughly 30 minutes later after launch, a flight of about 4,200 miles. "They make up essentially a mock warhead," Col. Dustin Harmon, the commander of the 377th Test and Evaluation Group, the nation's operational ICBM test unit, said in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. "There's two different types. One is telemetered, so it's got a radio transmitter in it, it's got antennas, gyroscopes, accelerometers — all the things that can sense motion and movement. And we fly those or we can put one in there that's called a high-fidelity. That is assembled much like an actual weapon would be, except we use surrogate materials, and so we want it to fly similarly to an actual weapon. ... It has the explosives in it that a normal warhead would to drive a detonation, but there's nothing to drive...."
The U.S. 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 — an international understanding on launch notifications. The U.S. also provided advance notice to China, a DOD spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. China notified the U.S. of an ICBM launch over the Pacific Ocean in September. There is no formal agreement between Washington and Beijing that requires such notifications, but each side provided them to avoid miscalculations.
Test launches happen three times a year, according to the article, yielding "several gigabytes of data" about reentry vehicles, subsystems, and payloads. "There are 400 Minuteman III missiles currently in service across Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike for sharing the article.
Re:So 44 years then. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is still a pretty slow pace. When do they plan to deploy it....2064?
If you stored a gun in your home for self defense, how often would you feel comfortable NOT testing it to make sure it’s going to work when you need it to. Including your own performance with it.
This is more operational validation. In hopes we never have to use it as more than the mild deterrent it is.
Re: (Score:2)
The timing was to act as a deterrent to Russia more than anything else, trying to demonstrate our ICBM leg of the triad is not incapable. The test is kind of irrelevant; we knew it worked already.
There's rarely been a time in the last 50 years when the deterrent was more important.
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Minutemen III missiles, deployed in the 1970s, travel at a speed of mach 25 [af.mil].
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The timing was to act as a deterrent to Russia more than anything else, trying to demonstrate our ICBM leg of the triad is not incapable. The test is kind of irrelevant; we knew it worked already.
There's rarely been a time in the last 50 years when the deterrent was more important.
I love how you assume that 50-year old “deterrent” is still working today.
As if they’re not locked in a 2-year armed conflict right now with a country that might as well be an official ally from a funding perspective.
A nuclear deterrent, isn’t anymore. Regularly scheduled ICBM fireworks shows, don’t do shit to deter. Not like Russia will suddenly believe America is unarmed and helpless if that fireworks show doesn’t happen right on time next year. This is nothing but a
Re: (Score:2)
A nuclear deterrent is to deter the use of nuclear weapons. If the nuclear deterrent were useful at stopping conventional warfare, like the US proxy war against Russia, we'd already be glowing slag.
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"the US proxy war against Russia"
You have that backwards. The only coercion going on in states that used to be part of the USSR is by Russia.
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I disagree. Absent US intervention to try to isolate and control Russia, no wars would have happened in that region of the world since 1991. It's all us trying to chase the dream of hegemony that is receding year by year.
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I disagree. Once the USSR collapsed, all of the newly-independent countries made it clear they weren't going to be ruled by Russia again, because none of them have good memories of that time.
Putin desperately wants his legacy to be 'restored the USSR', and is stopping at nothing to carry that out. The dream of hegemony is his.
Re: (Score:2)
Minuteman III development began 1966. Its first successful test flight was in 1968. Operational in 1970
"After the launch command was transmitted by a U.S. Navy E-6B Mercury, the Minuteman III blasted out of a silo at the launch facility on the north side of this base on the California coast. Airmen from the 625th Strategic Operations Squadron of Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., were aboard the E-6 along with Navy aircrew."
The Navy E-6B Mercury replaced the older EC-135C Looking Glass, which was airborne 24 hour
Sounds good to me (Score:4, Informative)
USA tests work perfectly fine
Russia tests explode in the silo before launch.
Re: (Score:1)
Litte detail there people like you do not get: A nuclear attack in Russia kills the US as well (and the rest of the human race) due to no agriculture after that for 100 years or so. The whole thing is just a complete waste of money and effort.
Re: Sounds good to me (Score:1, Troll)
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Y'all got a death wish over there or somethin?
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Trump may be deranged, but I do not think he is suicidal. He does not have the stones to kill himself.
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Well, since the first step is going to be replacing the sort of people who will say "I'm sorry, sir, nuking a hurricane is a *really* bad idea" with people who won't "think they know better than him"...
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Unless the Russians launching the missiles defect, or aren't at their post cause they were redeployed to Ukraine to be slaughtered on the front lines, and the rest of the launches fail like their recent tests.
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With the current, very reliable, climate models, this is a certainty. Nuclear war cannot be survived by either side or any bystanders. I do doubt the people in charge understand that though. They like to ignore most of reality.
Re: Wasted money (Score:3)
https://youtu.be/dGFkw0hzW1c [youtu.be]
Nuclear winter [Re: Wasted money] (Score:2)
I don't understand why you'd draw that equivalence. There have been thousands of nukes set off since the 40s. Many of them were surface explosions. One more isnt causing nuclear winter.
The nuclear winter effect isn't due to the explosions themselves. It's due to the soot injected into the stratosphere from the firestorms of burning cities. So, no, bomb testing wouldn't have had an effect.
Of the two bombs actually exploded in cities, the Hiroshima bomb ignited a firestorm, the Nagasaki one didn't. So, from the totality of our data so far, 50%. But, the nuclear winter scenarios assume hundreds of firestorms.
Re:Wasted money (Score:4, Informative)
Also, you don't need to launch anything. If nukes are flying armed, may as well just detonate the arsenal on the ground and kill your own people quickly as a mercy an initiate hundreds or thousands of years of global nuclear winter for everyone else.
That's a bit overestimating. The "nuclear winter" effect is due to smoke and soot injected into the stratosphere by hundreds of massive firestorms (note that it's the firestorms, not the actual explosions, that inject the soot); depending on what is targetted, there may or may not be firestorms. And "hundreds or thousands of years"-- no. The soot settles out of the stratosphere on the time scale of a year or two (depending on parameters)-- some models think a nuclear winter might last as long as as five years, but certainly not "hundreds or thousands."
But it's very very assumption dependent.
(And of course, losing the growing season in the northern hemisphere for five years would pretty much kill America and Europe, so it's still not a desirable scenario.)
Re: (Score:3)
US submarines are probably strategically positioned near any plausible nuclear threat with the ability to reach the same targets much faster. These missiles are a fabulous waste.... Let's leave it there. They're a fabulous waste.
Defense in depth. How do we know that in the next 20 years technological advances won't make it possible to track and destroy nuclear missile submarines, or to reliably intercept ICBMs? Having multiple, independent delivery mechanisms significantly reduces the likelihood that an adversary nullifies your deterrent.
No need to track submarines (Score:2)
Don't worry about tracking, we'll have a president soon who will tell the Russians where our subs are, whether for payment or probably just because that makes him feel powerful. Even if doesn't do that directly, he'll probably keep the classified data where foreign agents have no trouble getting at them.
It's not like he cares about the lives of our servicemen.
Why explosives at all? (Score:2)
Re:Why explosives at all? (Score:5, Interesting)
I presume it's because a proper nuclear detonation requires a very precisely timed implosion with multiple triggers. They probably have sensors where the fission core would be to verify that the explosives perform within planned parameters even after going through the stress of launch and reentry.
Re: (Score:3)
Probably to fully test the PAL, arming and detonation systems. The explosives in the RVs weapon payload are the very last thing to be commanded. After that, its just physics.
TFA stated that they tested a new airborne control system with this launch. A full-on test of C&C all the way to the "boom" seems like a good idea.
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Nuclear armament is a genie that can't easily be put back in the bottle.
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Nuclear treaties are dropping like flies, missile arsenals are growing again, and at least half a dozen non-nuclear countries are seriously considering going nuclear. And the US is about to slam its borders shut and stop caring about anything except ourselves. Last time we did that, it took
Re: (Score:2)
China is facing economic hardship and future population collapse. Don't be so sure.
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The US is facing the same, with less capable leadership, a deeply divided population and the effects of climate change beginning to have a real impact. And the EU is still trying to find itself after decades. The thing is the US only ever had that global leadership role because it was willing to offer protection to allies at great cost. That is probably over now.
We will see what happens. Definitely interesting times.
Re: (Score:2)
While not all of your assessment seems accurate, it can be said that the United States needs to assure the continued functionality and readiness of its existing nuclear arsenal.
Re: So that crap now starts again? (Score:2)
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There is one Cold War which never ended. (Score:2)
The USSR failed sufficient to become the Russian Federation while highly competent mainland China rode the spectacular NATO mistake of detente to vast wealth. Both remain enemies of civilization like all their adherents and admirers.
Hypocrites (Score:3)
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as a protection against the bullies like the US.
So tell us, which country, or part of a country, is the U.S. currently occupying and claiming as part of the U.S.? In fact, which country has the U.S. recently invaded with hundreds of thousands of troops? Tell us which country the U.S. has been bribing people to vote a certain way.
Yeah, thought so. Considering the U.S. is only doing the test as the result of another country testing (and failing) its own nuclear missile launch, how is this the fault of the
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Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Score:3)
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I haven't heard of the US expanding their arsenal [wikipedia.org]. They are modernizing it.
must be a dense surrogate (Score:3)
except we use surrogate materials, and so we want it to fly similarly to an actual weapon.
I presume you'd need something close in density to the warhead's plutonium or whatever the fissile material is, to get similar performance with the same overall density... But of course, with no explosion, the surrogate wouldn't be consumed. So that kinda implies something that is not significantly lethal when dispersed after the warhead lands.
Hand it over to AI (Score:1)
Let AI hand the control of this, humans are too stupid and emotional to be capable of controlling nuclear launches. It’s virtually guaranteed a human, likely a MAGA type, will start nuclear war at some point. Of course they will frame it as defensive.
Re: (Score:2)
By that measure Obama didn't entangle us in any foreign conflict either, so I'm not sure what BS you're on.
Re: Hand it over to AI (Score:2)
Let's play global thermonuclear war
Re: (Score:1)
How about a nice game of chess?
Minutemania (Score:3)
No formal agreement? (Score:2)
There is no formal agreement between Washington and Beijing that requires such notifications, but each side provided them to avoid miscalculations.
No formal agreement? What could possibly go wrong?
Mr. McKittrick after very careful consideration (Score:2)