Speaking in Washington Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz said that three test launches of the Safety Enhanced Reentry Vehicle earlier this year were so successful that Space Command scrapped a planned fourth test launch. SERV is a program to add decommissioned Peacekeeper warheads to existing Minuteman III missiles to achieve greater accuracy and to provide the assurance against a system-wide failure that comes from a variable-configuration fleet. SERV warheads will be used on “a portion” of the Minuteman fleet, said the acting AFSPC commander, with first deployment scheduled for this October. Exact basing plans have not been established, but Klotz, who previously oversaw USAF’s nuclear missile fields as commander of 20th Air Force, said there is no reason that SERV missiles cannot be intermixed at the same base with Minutemans carrying their traditional warheads.
The White House announced its United States Space Priorities Framework in a document released concurrently with Vice President Kamala Harris' first National Space Council meeting. Listed among five U.S. priorities is to “defend its national security interests from the growing scope and scale of space and counterspace threats.”