The Air Force at 3:14 a.m. today, local time, successfully launched a Minuteman III ICBM from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. It was unarmed and fitted with three dummy re-entry vehicles. The unarmed RVs flew 4,200 miles before hitting their pre-determined targets at the Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands. According to a USAF release, the launch was part of an operational test “to determine the weapon system’s reliability and accuracy.” It “also exercised US Strategic Command’s Airborne Launch Control System, which flies on a Navy E-6B Mercury aircraft. The launch authority was the 576th Flight Test Squadron at Vandenberg.
Fourth GPS III Satellite Heads to Space
Sept. 25, 2020
Lockheed Martin’s fourth GPS III satellite is scheduled to head to space on a SpaceX rocket Sept. 29, marking the navigation system’s second launch so far this year. “It'll be awesome to have four GPS III satellites on orbit. It's a good start to the Space Force's effort to modernize…