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  • Missile Alert Facility Model

    This model depicts a Minuteman II alert facility. The complex was surrounded by a double fence with sensitive motion-detecting alarms. Each Launch Control Center (LCC) served 10 Minuteman missiles in individual hardened underground silos, typically spaced about 4 to 14 miles apart. Individual silos

  • Launching Missiles

    Only the President of the United States can authorize a strategic missile launch. In the Minuteman II system, the launch sequence took less than five minutes. This is what would have happened: 1. The U.S. receives warning of an attack from early-warning satellites or ground radars. The North

  • Alert Facility Support

    Missile alert facilities require around-the-clock security and maintenance support. At Minuteman II sites, an enlisted facility manager oversaw all topside operations to support the combat crew and the missile system. Two enlisted flight security controllers monitored the alert facility and all ten

  • Missile Combat Crews

    Minuteman II combat crews included a commander and deputy commander. These officers underwent extensive training and constant drills to be sure they mastered every aspect of controlling nuclear weapons. While on alert, they maintained constant vigilance, managed maintenance logs and activities and

  • Minuteman Timeline

    1958 -- Department of Defense approves development 1961 -- First successful test flight 1962 -- Minuteman I operational (150 Minuteman 1A and 650 Minuteman 1B deployed in 16 squadrons) 1966 -- Minuteman II operational (450 deployed in nine squadrons) 1969 -- Last Minuteman I replaced by Minuteman

  • The Minuteman System

    The Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system is part of the U.S. nuclear "triad" of land-based missiles, submarine-based missiles, and strategic bombers. Conceived in the mid-1950s as the first solid-fuel ICBM in the U.S. nuclear arsenal and named for its quick-launch capability,

  • Minuteman II Mission Procedures Trainer

    "Ace in the Hole: Minuteman Strategic Missiles"Since 1962, the Minuteman missile system has played an important role in American strategic defense. Highly trained and disciplined U.S. Air Force crews in isolated, heavily protected missile control complexes maintain, secure and operate the system.

  • Earth Satellites and Space Vehicles

     The Soviet Union sent the world's first man-made earth satellite into orbit in October 1957. Since that time orbiting satellites of many different kinds have become commonplace. The development of U.S. space technology began with the military, with heavy involvement by the USAF. In the mid-1950s,

  • Putting a Satellite into Orbit

    Sending a satellite into orbit around the earth is not simply a matter of overcoming gravity with the brute force of rocket power. Rather, rocket power helps us use gravity to place a satellite into orbit. The power of the rocket lifts the satellite out of the atmosphere so air friction at high

  • Peacekeeper Re-entry Vehicles & Deployment Bus

    The LMG-118A Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was more powerful and more accurate than the Minuteman III. It carried 10 nuclear weapons in its Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) warhead.The warhead was part of the missile's fourth stage, which consisted of