Air Force and Navy service members aboard an airplane on Tuesday remotely launched a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile with three unarmed warheads from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
“A joint team of Air Force Global Strike Command Airmen and Navy sailors launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with three test reentry vehicles from aboard the Airborne Launch Control System at 12:21 a.m. Pacific Time Aug. 4,” according to an announcement from Air Force Global Strike Command. The Airborne Launch Control System is a Navy-owned Boeing E-6 aircraft.
According to the statement, members of the Air Force’s 625th Strategic Operations Squadron, based in Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., launched the test warheads on a 4,200-mile parabolic ride to the Kwajalein Atoll.
The Air Force’s Vandenberg-based 567th Flight Test Squadron also supported the launch, standing in for the 90th Missile Wing, members of which were not permitted to travel to California from F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming due to “current COVID-19 travel restrictions,” the service stated.
Due to restrictions of the U.S.-Russian New START nuclear-arms control treaty, the United States does not deploy Minuteman III missiles with more than one warhead. However, the Air Force can load a Minuteman III with multiple W78 warheads, and would be free to legally do so,if the treaty lapses after February 2021. To prevent that, the U.S. and Russian presidents must agree to a five-year extension before then.
The services launched the missiles only days before the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, in the final days of World War II. Test launches are typically scheduled months ahead of time, taking into consideration the needs of the programs for which missiles and related systems are tested, and the requirements of other range users, which would could be other military branches, or civilian agencies conducting space launches with time-sensitive windows.
MIRV Test Launches Rare
There appear to have been just three nultiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle intercontinental ballistic missile tests since 2017. These include: one on Feb. 8 that year, less than a month after President Donald Trump assumed office; one on April 25, 2018, just days before a planned summit between North Korea and South Korea; and the test this week. The Air Force typically conducts unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile tests three to five times per year.
Conducting MIRV test launches once in a while, enough to establish a pattern, “could allay any concerns that the United States was trying to send a message” with this week’s launch, Geoff Wilson, a policy analyst with the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, wrote in an email.
“At the same time, there are not prohibitions on MIRVing missiles under New START,” Wilson said. “The treaty limits the total amount of warheads that can be placed on a set number of deployed launchers. START II, negotiated by the administration of former President George H.W. Bush, did prohibit MIRVing on ICBMs, but that treaty never entered into force.”
New START, the current nuclear-arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia, caps the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and bombs at 1,550, down from the 2,200 limit imposed by the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT)—the so-called Moscow Treaty, and the 6,000 limit under the 1991 START agreement.
This story includes reporting from Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily.
