Recently I received the honor of being named as an Honorary Commander of one of the squadrons on the base near me. It’s a program designed to build bridges between the military and the civilian communities.
The actual commander of the squadron is a Colonel and he invited me to attend a missile test launch this past Tuesday. They would be launching an ICBM that had been randomly selected from the 400 or so nuclear missiles in America’s arsenal. All of our ICBM’s with nukes are located on bases in Montana, Wyoming or South Dakota. Once a missile was selected, its nuclear warheads were removed and it was shipped to the base here. It was then put back together and readied for launch.
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Each one of our ICBM’s has a Missile Launch Control Center that is basically a bunker located 80-100 feet below ground. They are manned 24/7 365 days per year by crews that stay below up to 3 days at a time. The crew assigned to the missile selected for the test launch gets to travel with the missile and be the launch crew for the test. This is a huge deal for them as absent a nuclear war, these crews will never actually get to fire off a missile.
So the event kicked off with myself and 3 friends I was able to invite getting a personal tour from the Colonel in charge of the test launch. His squadron is assigned to a fairly large office building in base. The offices very much resemble the home office of a large corporation. One room is staffed entirely by officers. They are responsible for planning the test launches and for collecting and interpreting the data that the test produces. The walls are lined with pictures of past launches, mission patches, honor coin displays, etc…. They even have a squad room with their own bar. Part of the office serves as sort of a museum with models of the missiles, the war heads and the guidance systems inside the missiles.
The guidance system is quite interesting. The Colonel explained that the missiles don’t use GPS to find their targets….there are 3 gyros in the missile that basically report reading to the onboard guidance computer and keep the missile on target. As far as accuracy he explained that if you stood on one side of a football field with a ping pong ball and could throw it to the other side of the field and land it in a cup every time, that’s how accurate they are.
After the tour we were bussed over to an auditorium for the mission briefing. They explained that the missile testing is done from California mainly for safety reasons. The base being on the coast has a 270 degree window to launch directly over water. He explained that Canada would probably be upset if we were launching missiles over their territory. So the missile leaves the base and travels to an atoll (Kwajalein) in the South Pacific. It’s roughly 4000 miles away and takes about 20 minutes to get there. Its path is basically a horseshoe. It reaches an altitude of 750 miles above earth before turning back towards earth. By comparison the Intl Space Station orbits at roughly 250 miles above earth. The current ICBMS are Minutemen 3s but they will be replaced by the end of the decade with the Sentinel missile. The Colonel explained that the missile tests are conducted to prove the viability of our nuclear arsenal and also to send a message to our allies as well as to our foes.
From the auditorium we were again put on a bus and taken to the viewing site. The site sits about 3 miles from the actual silo. For safety reasons that is as close as anyone is allowed. The viewing site had a very non-descript small building but that building was actually the topside of a deactivated Missile Launch Control Center. We were allowed to enter an elevator 8 at a time and descend 100 feet down. Upon exiting the elevator we walked thru a doorway protected by an 8 ton blast door. It was about 4 feet thick. The room housing the control center has bunks and an eating area as well as the launch controls. The room is actually suspended by four very large “springs” designed to protect the occupants of the site was attacked topside.
The controls look pretty antiquated but are well maintained. They actually still use floppy discs. Nothing is online to prevent any hackers from gaining access.
It was cloudy so the actual launch was difficult to see other than the initial ignition. This is the best picture I was able to get.
This video is from the AF Global Strike account
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoezQ...RlODBiNWFlZA==
The door you see opening on top of the silo actually weighs 110 tons. It serves to protect the silo from attacks as well as from radio waves and electro-magnetic pulses. It sits on a rail system. A ballistic gas generator is used to open the door. The silos used for testing get refurbished after each launch and are used over and over. The silos that house actual nukes are one time use. If one were to be launched the entire silo is destroyed after.
A funny story….while waiting for the launch I was inside the building talking with a couple of Colonels, a 1-Star General and a civilian woman. I asked her what she did and she replied……I’m the Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of US Nuclear Policy. What about you? I sort of mumbled…..I make pizzas. LOL. Being humbled would be an understatement!
The next launch will be Halloween Night, looking forward to it.
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Originally Posted by Sanlmar
