An unarmed Minuteman III missile test kicked off the new work week with an early Monday morning departure from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The three-stage weapon carrying a dummy warhead blasted out of its underground silo on the northern section of the base at 1:23 a.m., marking the second Minuteman test in less than three weeks.
Upon liftoff, the military tracked the weapon system’s mock re-entry vehicle as it traveled thousands of miles to a predetermined target near the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean.
Vandenberg typically conducts four Minuteman missile tests annually to gather information about the weapon system’s accuracy and reliability.
However, officials have remained mum about the outcome of the test.
Missile tests conducted from Vandenberg are scheduled years in advance and are not in response to any real-world situation.
Louisiana-based Air Force Global Strike Command has 400 Minuteman weapons sitting on alert near Air Force bases in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.
Another Minuteman test occurred on April 25, after the military called off tests that had been planned near the Olympic Games in South Korea.
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation expressed concerns about the Monday morning’s test.
”When it comes to ballistic missile tests, the U.S. continues to operate on a hypocritical double standard,” said David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
“Its own missile tests and those of its allies are treated as necessary and business-as-usual, while the missile tests of non-allied countries are treated as provocative and dangerous,” Krieger said. “What the world needs is a single standard aimed at ending the nuclear arms race and achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. It also needs U.S. leadership rather than U.S. hypocrisy.”
Meanwhile, Saturday’s planned launch of five Iridium Next satellites and two NASA spacecraft aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg reportedly will have to wait at least two more days, Iridium officials said Monday.
In addition to the Iridium spacecraft, also hitching a ride on the Falcon will be NASA’s twin spacecraft known as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission.
The GRACE-FO mission involving a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences will take over where the first GRACE mission left off when it completed its 15-year mission in 2017.
Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex-4 on South Base now is targeting a departure of 12:53 p.m. May 21 at the earliest.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.