Technicians at Arnold Engineering and Development Center in Tennessee are progressing through eight tests of Minuteman ICBM motors this year. They completed the first late last month in the center’s J-6 Large Rocket Motor Test Facility. The Air Force only gets to launch three Minuteman missiles each year to ensure system performance, so “the more tests we have here at AEDC will better our predictability and will better the precision of our analysis” of the rocket motors, said Col. Robert Shofner, commander of the 526th ICBM Wing at the Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah.
U.S. Air Force F-35s and F-22s regularly deploy deep into the Pacific region from Alaska, Utah, and Hawaii. In the future, though, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command would like to see the Air Force permanently station fifth-generation aircraft west of the international date line—closer to China.