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Russia said it had successfully test-fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile on Tuesday, with tensions high over its seizure of control in the Crimea and its threat to send more forces to its neighbour Ukraine. The Strategic Rocket Forces launched an RS-12M Topol missile from the southerly Astrakhan region near the Caspian Sea and the dummy warhead hit its target at a proving ground in Kazakhstan, the state-run news agency RIA cited Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Yegorov as saying.

A worrisome culture of fear that made launch officers believe they had to get perfect test scores to be promoted fueled a widening cheating scandal within the military's nuclear missile corps, according to Air Force officials. (snip) Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said the scandal hasn't affected the safety or reliability of the military's nuclear mission. (snip) All 92 officers — nearly 17 percent of the force — have been decertified and taken off the job while the scandal is being investigated. That means other launch officers and staff must fill in, performing 10 24-hour shifts per month, instead...

Significant Developments at North Korea’s Sohae Test Facility By 38 North 29 January 2014 A 38 North exclusive with analysis by Nick Hansen. Summary Recent commercial satellite imagery indicates that North Korea may be preparing the Sohae Satellite Launching Station (“Tongchang-ri”) for a more robust rocket test program in the future involving larger space launch vehicles and road-mobile ballistic missiles able to attack targets in Northeast Asia and the United States. The Sohae gantry tower has been undergoing significant modifications to enable it to launch a large rocket up to 25 percent longer than the Unha-3 space launch vehicle tested...

For nearly a decade, an awkward debate has raged about the U.S. military's nuclear force: Did top Air Force officials really choose "00000000" as a code that could enable the launch of a nuclear missile? Ten years later, in a document obtained by Foreign Policy, the U.S. military told Congress that it never happened. But is the Pentagon telling the truth? Bruce Blair, a nuclear security expert and former launch officer , says no. Blair, now a scholar and author at Princeton University, first raised the idea in a piece published in 2004. He accused the Air Force of circumventing...

Why is Iran working on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles? There is no possible peaceful purpose for ballistic missiles. Iran may claim that their nuclear program is peaceful, but they cannot possibly make that claim when it comes to ballistic missiles. The only reason to have ballistic missiles is to target enemies with high explosives and WMD. Iran’s Shehab-3 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles have sufficient range to hit Israel, Saudi Arabia and US bases in Afghanistan, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait and Turkey. Why are the Iranians working with the North Koreans on multi-stage Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)? Who might the Iranians be...

Iranian missile technicians secretly visited North Korea as part of joint development of a new rocket booster for long-range missiles or space launchers at the same time nuclear talks took place in Geneva, according to U.S. officials. Several groups of technicians from the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG), a unit in charge of building Iran’s liquid-fueled missiles, traveled to Pyongyang during the past several month, including as recently as late October, to work on the new, 80-ton rocket booster being developed by the North Koreans, according to officials familiar with intelligence reports. The booster is believed by U.S. intelligence agencies...

The Obama administration has drafted a plan to shutter an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) squadron three years after it assured hesitant lawmakers that the New START U.S.-Russia arms reduction treaty would not lead to deep cuts in the ICBM force.A new timeline prepared by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon maps out a strategy to eliminate an ICBM squadron—and destroy its missile silos—by Dec. 5, 2017. An environmental assessment would begin next month.The document says the reductions are necessary to “meet the New START Treaty compliance date by closing an ICBM...

Russia’s latest flight of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile this month appears to be another circumvention of a 1987 nuclear missile accord, U.S. officials and private arms specialists said. A test of what the Pentagon calls the SS-25 road-mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) took place Oct. 10 and traveled less than 2,000 miles, indicating it could be a missile banned by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Russia’s military also failed to notify an international group set up in 2002 to prevent missile proliferation called the Hague Code of Conduct about the test. The flight test two weeks ago...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Twice this year alone, Air Force officers entrusted with the launch keys to nuclear-tipped missiles have been caught leaving open a blast door that is intended to help prevent a terrorist or other intruder from entering their underground command post ... Transgressions such as this are rarely revealed publicly. But officials with direct knowledge of Air Force intercontinental ballistic missile operations told the AP that such violations have happened, undetected, many more times than in the cases of the two launch crew commanders and two deputy commanders who were given administrative punishments this year. The blast door...

WASHINGTON — The Air Force fired the general in charge of its nuclear missiles on Friday, just two days after a Navy admiral with top nuclear weapons responsibilities was sacked. Both men are caught up in investigations of alleged personal misconduct, adding to a cascade of turmoil inside the nation’s nuclear weapons force. The Air Force removed Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, a 35-year veteran, from his command of 20th Air Force, responsible for all 450 of the service’s intercontinental ballistic missiles. Carey, who took his post in Wyoming in June 2012, will be reassigned pending the outcome of an investigation...

Japan cancels first launch of Epsilon rocket 19 seconds before liftoff Tariq Malik, Space.com The first launch of Japan's newest rocket, the next-generation Epsilon booster, hit a major last-minute snag Tuesday, forcing the country's space agency to abort the spaceflight 19 seconds before liftoff. The glitch occurred extremely late in the countdown for the Epsilon rocket, which was slated to blast off from a seaside pad at the Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan. The rocket was set to launch Tuesday at 12:45 a.m. EDT, which was 1:45 p.m. Japan Standard Time at the launch site. /snip JAXA's Epsilon rocket...

Beijing tests a mobile missile capable of hitting the continental U.S. and prepares to deploy ballistic missile submarines that can do the same, while our commander-in-chief slashes our missile defenses. In a speech before the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Rep. Mike Rogers, R.-Ala., chairman of the House armed services subcommittee on strategic forces, warned that the Obama administration has cut $6 billion from U.S. missile defense programs at a time of growing missile threats from potential adversaries. ... a GBI test on July 5, the first such test in five years, failed. Our missile defense capabilities, which...

More N. Korean Long-Range Rocket Launches Expected 'Soon' Steve Herman July 31, 2013 TOKYO — Specialists following North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile development concur the reclusive state is nearly certain to continue launching long-range rockets which may be intended to improve its capability to fire weapons of mass destruction. A North Korean official in Pyongyang last week told VOA News that another launch of the Unha series vehicle will occur “soon” as part of the country's “peaceful use of space.” He did not elaborate.

The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control — and, if necessary, launch — nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized failings, including a remarkably dim review of their unit's launch skills. The group's deputy commander said it is suffering "rot" within its ranks. "We are, in fact, in a crisis right now," the commander, Lt. Col. Jay Folds, wrote in an internal email obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by the Air Force. The tip-off to trouble was a March inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which...

It’s way past time for the Obama administration to take North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats seriously. An urgently critical priority must be to counter North Korea’s rapidly-emerging capability to deliver and detonate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device in the sky over America which could knock out electronic computer circuits and paralyze virtually all activities over a vast region. Last December they successfully demonstrated its capability to launch a small payload into orbit, meaning that may soon be able to target regions in the U.S. and other distant locations. A devastating nuclear EMP device could be small, and North Korea...

Washington - The Pentagon has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test due to take place in California next week amid soaring nuclear tensions with North Korea, an official has said. The defense official told AFP that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel rescheduled the Minuteman 3 test at Vandenberg Air Force Base for some time next month due to concerns the launch "might be misconstrued by some as suggesting that we were intending to exacerbate the current crisis with North Korea." "We wanted to avoid that misperception or manipulation," the US official added. "We are committed to testing our ICBMs to ensure...

On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech that horrified the liberal establishment of the time: his call for a Strategic Defense Initiative. Ronald Reagan was not your typical politician. The only president born and raised in Illinois (yes, Lincoln, Grant, and Obama moved to Illinois as adults, but only Ronald Reagan grew up there), he came to politics with a heartland sensibility: do what makes sense, do what’s right; don’t worry about what the elites from the Ivy League or Foggy Bottom insist upon. Reagan came to party activism late in life, running for public office for...

Brief excerpt; The paper said the general made clear at a speech given at a rally in Pyongyang that intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other rockets capable of attacking pre-set targets have been armed with various types of atomic warheads.

Object seen in orbit after North Korea carries out controversial rocket launch By Jethro Mullen, CNN December 12, 2012 -- Updated 0907 GMT (1707 HKT) Hong Kong (CNN) -- North Korea surprised and angered the international community Wednesday by launching a long-range rocket that appeared to put a satellite in orbit, a breakthrough for the reclusive, nuclear-armed state. The North Korean regime said the rocket had successfully blasted off from a space center on its west coast and delivered a satellite into its intended orbit. The launch followed a botched attempt in April and came just days after Pyongyang suggested...

The news report is HERE:LINK.This is from Japanese TV news today, it reports that the sale occured in August last year (4 mobile transporters used in North Korea's massive military parade showcasing the mobile nature of their ICBM program, including modified Scud, Nodong, etc.). Japan caught wind of this dangerous, nefarious PRC-DPRK deal in October. The United States also came to know this material fact.The sale marks a complete violation of UN embargoes on such material and equipment for export to the DPRK for thier intermediate and long range missile program. Japanese news notes the US kept silent about...