Vandenberg Air Force Base's first launch of 2006 blasted off early Thursday on a mission to test how a newer re-entry vehicle performs on the older Minuteman weapon system.

The unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile climbed out of its underground silo on North Base at 12:01 a.m., the opening of the launch window.

“The purpose of the flight was to verify the Minuteman 3's ability to carry the safer and more accurate Mark 21 warhead, originally designed for the Peacekeeper missile,” said Lt. Col. Stephen L. Davis, 576th Flight Test Squadron commander.

Peacekeeper missiles were retired from the nation's nuclear arsenal. The Minuteman fleet is undergoing a multi-part program to extend the weapons system's life.

Upon liftoff, the military tracked the weapon's lone dummy warhead as it flew about 30 minutes toward a target at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the central Pacific Ocean.

The blastoff comes after major changes for the Western Range, which tracks just-launched rockets and missiles to ensure they remain safely on their flight paths. The range also monitors aircraft testing off the Central Coast.

From mid-December to mid-February, workers took advantage of a gap between launches to get some chores done.

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Those included moving the Aeronautical Control Center, which handles aeronautical operations, to the new Western Range Operations Control Center facility, according to Maj. Todd Fleming, Vandenberg spokesman. It's the first step toward moving all range functions to the new facility, he added.

The two-month period also allowed crews to conduct several maintenance tasks on various range instrumentation systems.

The range handles some 7,000 operations each year, including flight tests, missile tests and space launches.

Next up on Vandenberg's lineup is an air-launched Pegasus rocket, scheduled to carry a NASA technology demonstration spacecraft to orbit Feb. 28.

The $130 million micro-satellite mission, called Space Technology 5, will carry three 55-pound spacecraft.

“We are, in fact, at this time looking good for our Feb. 28 date,” Candace Carlisle, ST5 deputy project manager with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Md., told reporters Thursday morning.

Janene Scully can be reached at 739-2214 or janscully@santa

mariatimes.com.

February 17, 2006