The military successfully launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in Southern California to test and show off US nuclear capabilities.
The Minuteman III missile lit up the late night sky after it was launched at the Vandenberg Space Force Base — about 150 miles from Los Angeles — around 1 a.m. Wednesday.
The “routine” test was conducted to ensure that the US’ “nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure, reliable, and effective in deterring 21st-century threats and reassuring our allies,” Global Strike Command said.
Dramatic footage of the launch shows the rocket blasting off in a violent explosion of fire and smoke then streaking through the sky until vanishing into the darkness.
The “test launch is just one of the ways the Department of the Air Force demonstrates the readiness, precision, and professionalism of U.S. nuclear forces,” Acting Secretary of the Air Force Gary Ashworth said in a statement.
“It also provides confidence in the lethality and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear deterrence mission,” he added.
The ICBM was equipped with a “single telemetered joint test assembly re-entry vehicle” and traveled some 4,200 miles at speeds of over 15,000 mph to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site located on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
There, data from its final moments of flight is analyzed to evaluate the missile system’s performance.
Per standard procedure, the US notified the Russian government and other countries ahead of the launch, the Air Force said.
The military had shipped a “randomly selected” Minuteman III from an underground silo at the F.E. Warren Force Base, Wyoming and shipped it 1,300 miles to Vandenberg — the primary testing ground for the Air Force Global Strike Command’s ICBM deterrent infrastructure.
Over 300 similar tests have been conducted in the past, officials said.
Vandenberg’s 377th Test and Evaluation Group, which operates at the base, oversaw the latest launch.
Col. Dustin Harmon, 377th TEG commander, said the test “allows our team to analyze and report accuracy and reliability for the current system while validating projected missile system improvements.”
The Minuteman weapon system — a critical component of the US strategic defense system — was developed in the 1950s and first deployed in the 1960s, according to the USAF website.
The surface-based Minuteman III have a range of 6,000 miles.
Data from test launches is shared and studied by several agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Energy and US Strategic Command.
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