All Minuteman III launch control centers now have received planned modifications, moving them into the so-called minimum essential emergency communications network. The $250 million project, executed by Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass., eliminated Minuteman’s 1962-vintage survivable low frequency communications system. The new system helps ensure the LCCs can “receive Presidential directives throughout the full spectrum of nuclear conflict,” said 1st. Lt. John Gould, network program manager. The new set-up includes connections to the hardened Milstar satellite.
The successful second flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on Nov. 13 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., also included a first for the company—the launcher’s booster stuck its landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean.
