Defense Daily

The Air Force and Northrop Grumman held a ceremony to mark the
event at the end of December at Hill AFB, Utah, according to the
company. The missile now sits ready for use in a silo at F.E. Warren
AFB, Wyo., the company said.
Northrop Grumman is carrying out this work under the Safety
Enhanced Reentry Vehicle (SERV) program with partners Boeing [BA] and
Lockheed Martin [LMT]. Completion of the upgrades on the Minuteman IIIs
that will carry the Mark 21 is expected by 2012, Northrop Grumman said.
SERV is one of eight major upgrade initiatives led by Northrop
Grumman under a 15-year prime integration contract with the Air Force
to keep the Minuteman III fleet viable to 2020. Among the eight, the
Air Force is incorporating new guidance and propulsion systems on the
nuclear-tipped missiles, which entered service in 1970.
F.E. Warren is one of the nation's three ICBM fields that together
host 500 Minuteman IIIs. The Air Force this year intends to start the
process of reducing that number to 450 per a mandate in last year's
Quadrennial Defense Review (Defense Daily, Feb. 6, 2006 and July 7,
2006).
The Air Force retired the last of its 50 Peacekeeper missiles in
2005.
Service officials have said the SERV upgrade will allow at least a
portion of the Minuteman fleet to carry the Peacekeeper's W87 nuclear
warhead. This is a risk-reduction measure in the unlikely event that a
systemic problem arises with the Minuteman III's current warhead
(Defense Daily, June 14, 2006).
The Air Force actually intends to operate the Minuteman fleet
beyond 2020, with incremental improvements beyond those currently
underway to keep the missiles viable as long as possible (Defense
Daily, July 6, 2006).

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."