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icbms

Glitch hits Wyoming ICBM site computers

One-ninth of the American ICBM strike force went offline on Saturday, according to a report on the Web site of the U.S. magazine The Atlantic, as a series of control errors multiplied beyond the ability of engineers to compensate.

The squadron of 50 missiles affected is stationed at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, said the report. The weapons are controlled by five launch control center computers (LCCs), which periodically interrogate the on-board guidance systems of the weapons to confirm their status. According to the report, one LCC began to ping the missiles out of sequence, causing … Read more

Interceptor missile to take on ICBMs

Lockheed Martin said this week it has reached an important milestone in the development of one piece of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System (PDF) puzzle: an interceptor missile capable of taking out multiple enemy ICBM warheads.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Multiple Kill Vehicle-L would be launched as a single interceptor equipped with a multiple-kill payload that doesn't bother with the single warhead--it goes after an entire "threat cluster" instead.

It's designed to destroy not only the enemy's re-entry vehicle (intercontinental ballistic missile) but also all the warheads it may contain, … Read more