The Air Force had to call off at the last minute a planned July 19 launch of an unarmed Minuteman III ICBM at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The flight was supposed to test the missile’s reliability, said the Air Force. The launch delay is expected to be brief, and the ICBM could fly as early as Thursday. The missile’s three warheads will be hurled toward a target in the Marshall Islands area. The launch authority is the 576th Flight Test Squadron at Vandenberg.
A new Navy missile could fill a long-range air-to-air need for the U.S. Air Force’s fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation fighters. The Navy’s portfolio acquisition executive for munitions posted information on the AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile online on Aug. 22, the same day it unveiled the project at the service’s…