In comparison, older designs burned primarily from one end to the other, meaning that at any instant one small section of the fuselage was being subjected to extreme loads and temperatures. This also meant the heat was spread across the entire motor, instead of the end, and because it burned from the inside out it did not reach the wall of the missile fuselage until the fuel was finished burning. The increased burn rate meant increased thrust. This allowed the fuel to burn along the entire length of the cylinder, rather than just the end as in earlier designs. Adapting a concept developed in the UK, they cast the fuel into large cylinders with a star-shaped hole running along the inner axis. To achieve the required energy, that year Hall began funding research at Boeing and Thiokol into the use of ammonium perchlorate composite propellant. But Hall was convinced that they could be used for a true ICBM with a 5,500-nautical-mile (10,200 km 6,300 mi) range. Hall's superiors were interested in short- and medium-range missiles with solids, especially for use in Europe where the fast reaction time was an advantage for weapons that might be attacked by Soviet aircraft.
Solid fuels were already commonly used in short-range rockets. Hall, who in 1956 was given charge of the solid-fuel-propulsion division of General Bernard Schriever's Western Development Division, created to lead development of the SM-65 Atlas and HGM-25A Titan I ICBMs. Minuteman owes its existence largely to Air Force Colonel Edward N. History Minuteman I missile Edward Hall and solid fuels
The Minuteman III will be progressively replaced by the new Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) ICBM, to be built by Northrop Grumman, beginning in 2030. This force has shrunk to 400 Minuteman III missiles as of September 2017, deployed in missile silos around Malmstrom AFB, Montana Minot AFB, North Dakota and Francis E. They were initially armed with the W62 warhead with a yield of 170 kilotons.īy the 1970s, 1,000 Minuteman missiles were deployed. In 1970, the Minuteman III became the first deployed ICBM with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV): three smaller warheads that improved the missile's ability to strike targets defended by ABMs. The Minuteman II entered service in 1965 with a host of upgrades to improve its accuracy and survivability in the face of an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system the Soviets were known to be developing. However, the development of the United States Navy (USN) UGM-27 Polaris, which addressed the same role, allowed the Air Force to modify the Minuteman, boosting its accuracy enough to attack hardened military targets, including Soviet missile silos. The Minuteman entered service in 1962 as a deterrence weapon that could hit Soviet cities with a second strike and countervalue counterattack if the U.S. The missile was named for the colonial minutemen of the American Revolutionary War, who could be ready to fight on short notice.
nuclear triad, along with the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and nuclear weapons carried by long-range strategic bombers.ĭevelopment of the Minuteman began in the mid-1950s when basic research indicated that a solid-fuel rocket motor could stand ready to launch for long periods of time, in contrast to liquid-fueled rockets that required fueling before launch and so might be destroyed in a surprise attack. As of 2023, the LGM-30G Minuteman III version is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States and represents the land leg of the U.S. The LGM-30 Minuteman is an American land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in service with the Air Force Global Strike Command. Minuteman III launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on 9 February 2023.
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