Posted on 10/26/2009 12:07:51 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The U.S. Navy conducted successful test flights Sept. 3 and 4 of two Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missiles (FBMs) built by Lockheed Martin. The Navy launched the unarmed missiles from the submerged submarine USS West Virginia (SSBN 736) in the Atlantic Ocean. The Trident II D5 missile now has achieved 129 consecutive successful test flights since 1989 - a record unmatched by any other large ballistic missile or space launch vehicle.
"These successful missile tests again demonstrate the readiness and reliability of the entire Trident II D5 Strategic Weapon System," said Melanie A. Sloane, vice president of Fleet Ballistic Missile programs, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, the Navy's Trident missile prime contractor.
"The Navy's Strategic Systems Programs achieves sustained performance through close government and industry partnerships. Lockheed Martin's role includes not only missile design, development and production, but also a full range of operations and sustainment support services."
The Navy launched the missiles as part of a Follow-on Commander's Evaluation Test. The Navy conducts a continuing series of operational system evaluation tests to assure the safety, reliability, readiness and performance of the Trident II D5 Strategic Weapon System, as required by the Department of Defense's National Command Authority. The Navy conducts the tests under the testing guidelines of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
For the tests, the missiles were converted into test configurations using a test missile kit produced by Lockheed Martin that contains range safety devices and flight telemetry instrumentation.
First deployed in 1990, the D5 missile is currently aboard OHIO-class submarines and British VANGUARD-class submarines. The three-stage, solid-propellant, inertial-guided ballistic missile can travel a nominal range of 4,000 nautical miles and carries multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles
(Excerpt) Read more at spacewar.com ...
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It would be comforting to know they were occasionally testing the warheads as well.
They are.
obama will now be ready to SELL THEM TO HUGO CHAVEZ
Everybody needs a warm fuzzy feling once in a while, if only to offset the prevailent bad news that seems to surround us. I just got mine!
The results can be computer simulated.
Slick Willy ended nuclear testing in the early 1990s.
Running computer programs is simulation, not testing.
How about loading a warhead of tungsten rods and testing it on parts of Iran?
A submariner was telling me the aluminum-based solid rocket propellant was so stable that the rocket company, Morton-Thiecol (?) has handed out ash trays made of the stuff. Also the nose cone was made specifically from Sitka Spruce. Every time a D5 pops out of the water it finds, without fail, the North Star, to gets its bearings. Despite the appearances it never gets wet, the steam used to propel the D5 also envelopes it in the water.
A nuclear weapons code is a set of equations, up to a million lines long, that describe the physical processes that occur in a nuclear explosion. A code, thus, becomes the principal tool for nuclear weapons designers as they seek to meet the specifications for each new weapon ordered by the military.They embody 50 years of American nuclear know-how.
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