U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command and the U.S. Space Force’s 30th Space Launch Delta Guardians launched an unarmed Boeing Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with three test re-entry vehicles on Sept. 6 from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
“The ICBM’s reentry vehicle traveled approximately 4,200 miles to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands,” the Air Force said Wednesday in a press release.
Wednesday’s launch was an operational test launch, the Air Force said. Typically in these launches, the Air Force pulls a missile at random from a silo in the U.S. heartland and launches it into the Pacific to make sure it functions as intended.
The service also periodically tests improvements to non-nuclear parts of Minuteman III’s warhead, furnished by the National Nuclear Security Administration, in what are known as developmental test launches. These have essentially the same flight paths as operational test launches.
The Northrop Grumman LGM-35A Sentinel is to replace the Minuteman III starting in 2029. The missile will initially carry W87-0 warheads, a Sentinel-specific version of the W87 that is one of two warheads used on Minuteman III missiles.
“Until full capability is achieved in the mid-2030s, the Air Force is committed to ensuring Minuteman III remains a viable deterrent,” AFGSC said.
Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command and a former commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, said in August that he is optimistic about Sentinel’s development.
Cotton, a who has identified himself as a “missileer by trade,” told reporters that Minuteman III “is still a valid and effective weapon system.”
A version of this story first appeared in Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily.
