Posted on 06/01/2012 2:40:02 PM PDT by moonshot925
SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 31, 2012 – The U.S. Navy conducted successful test flights April 14 and 16 of four Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missiles (FBMs) built by Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT]. The Navy launched two unarmed missiles each day from the submerged submarine USS Maryland (SSBN 738) in the Atlantic Ocean.
These tests marked the 139th, 140th, 141st and 142st successful test flights of the Trident II D5 missile since design completion in 1989 – a reliability record unmatched by any other large ballistic missile or space launch vehicle.
(Excerpt) Read more at lockheedmartin.com ...
I rode “boomers” for 20 years. Will Rogers, Georgia (pre conversion) and Alaska. Test launches are fun for the crew.
Obtaining similar levels of performance when 10's of millions of parts have been produced is a whole different game.
What does it sound/feel like when one of those is launched?
4 or 5 warheads per missile. W76 or (100 KT) or W88 (475 KT) The other re-entry vehicles are used as decoys.
The Typhoons are way too expensive to maintaine. They are three times larger than the Ohios.
Personally I like riding the wind powerless. ; )
at one time i worked for the company that made the star tracking camera that gave the Trident a known position at apogee there are three stars it needs to find to know where it is in space and if it can't find them, there are two more sets of three stars it can look for
it knew where it was when it left the tube and after finding the stars and aligning itself to them, it knows where it is, from then on it can calculate where it's going to land
the cameras were so powerful that they could find an object the size of a basketball, painted black, at 23,000 miles
and it did it not by seeing the object, but from the absence of light behind it...
i still have one of the cutaway cameras encased in Lexan used for show and tell, after they no longer made the cameras, they were simply going to throw it away!
NOTU rocks!!! For a good triple-take, be driving up A1A when a sub on the Eastern Range lights the candle on two of these puppies at the same time.
It “moves” the 18,000 ton submarine. If you didn’t know what was going on, you’d thing something really bad just happened to the boat.
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