Speaking in Washington Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz said that three test launches of the Safety Enhanced Reentry Vehicle earlier this year were so successful that Space Command scrapped a planned fourth test launch. SERV is a program to add decommissioned Peacekeeper warheads to existing Minuteman III missiles to achieve greater accuracy and to provide the assurance against a system-wide failure that comes from a variable-configuration fleet. SERV warheads will be used on “a portion” of the Minuteman fleet, said the acting AFSPC commander, with first deployment scheduled for this October. Exact basing plans have not been established, but Klotz, who previously oversaw USAF’s nuclear missile fields as commander of 20th Air Force, said there is no reason that SERV missiles cannot be intermixed at the same base with Minutemans carrying their traditional warheads.
House and Senate lawmakers say they’re hopeful Congress will pass a defense appropriations bill in the coming weeks to avoid a repeat of last fall’s government shutdown, with only having a handful of working days remaining before the Jan. 30 deadline. Yet legislations still have to release a compromise version of defense spending legislation, which will have to…
