|
W87
The W87 is an American thermonuclear missile warhead formerly deployed on the LGM-118A Peacekeeper ("MX") ICBM. 50 MX missiles were built, each carrying up to 10 W87 warheads in multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV), and were deployed from 1986 to 2005. Starting in 2007, 250 of the W87 warheads from retired Peacekeeper missiles were retrofitted onto much older Minuteman III missiles, with one warhead per missile. An upgraded version is planned for use on the forthcoming LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM. Description Design of the W87 (now called the W87 Mod 0 or W87-0) started in February 1982 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and production of the warhead began in July 1986 and ended in December 1988.. Its design is reportedly somewhat similar to the W88, though that warhead was designed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The weapons are part of a National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear weapons lifecycle program. The W87 design includes all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LGM-35A Sentinel
The LGM-35 Sentinel, also known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), is a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system under development for the United States Air Force. It is intended to replace all 450 LGM-30 Minuteman, Minuteman III missiles beginning in 2029, with service expected through 2075. The Minuteman III missiles are currently deployed in North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska. In 2020, the Department of the Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman a sole-source contract to develop the Sentinel after Boeing withdrew from the bidding process. Subcontractors include Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Bechtel, Honeywell, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Parsons Corporation, Parsons, Textron, and others. On 19 January 2024, the Air Force announced that program costs had increased to over $125 billion, significantly exceeding the initial $77.7 billion estimate, and that deployment would be delayed by two years. The cost and schedule overrun was classified as " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minuteman III
The LGM-30 Minuteman is an American land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in service with the Air Force Global Strike Command. , the LGM-30G (Version 3) is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States and represents the land leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, along with the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and nuclear weapons carried by long-range strategic bombers. Development of the Minuteman began in the mid-1950s when basic research indicated that a solid-fuel rocket motor could stand ready to launch for long periods of time, in contrast to liquid-fueled rockets that required fueling before launch and so might be destroyed in a surprise attack. The missile was named for the colonial minutemen of the American Revolutionary War, who could be ready to fight on short notice. The Minuteman entered service in 1962 as a deterrence weapon that could hit Soviet cities with a second strike and countervalue counterattack if the U.S. was att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MGM-134 Midgetman
The MGM-134A Midgetman, also known as the Small Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, was an intercontinental ballistic missile developed by the United States Air Force. The system was mobile and could be set up rapidly, allowing it to move to a new firing location after learning of an enemy missile launch. To attack the weapon, the enemy would have to blanket the area around its last known location with multiple warheads, using up a large percentage of their force for limited gains and no guarantee that all of the missiles would be destroyed. In such a scenario, the U.S. would retain enough of their forces for a successful counterstrike, thereby maintaining deterrence. Overview The Midgetman grew out of a requirement expressed in the mid-1980s by the U.S. Air Force for a small ICBM which could be deployed on road vehicles. Fixed silos are inherently vulnerable to attack, and with the increasing accuracy of submarine-launched ballistic missiles there was a growing threat that the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered privately by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response to the detonation of the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb during the Cold War. It later became autonomous in 1971 and was designated a national laboratory in 1981. Lawrence Livermore Lab is primarily funded by the United States Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy and it is managed Privately held company, privately and operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (a Public-private partnerships in the United States, partnership of the University of California, Bechtel, BW ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LGM-118A Peacekeeper
The LGM-118 Peacekeeper, originally known as the MX for "Missile, Experimental", was a MIRV-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) produced and deployed by the United States from 1986 to 2005. The missile could carry up to eleven Mark 21 reentry vehicles (although treaties limited its actual payload to ten), each armed with a 300-kiloton W87 warhead. Initial plans called for building and deploying 100 MX ICBMs, but budgetary concerns limited the final procurement; only 50 entered service. Disarmament treaties signed after the Peacekeeper's development led to its withdrawal from service in 2005. Studies on the underlying concept started in the 1960s. The idea was to allow the US to absorb a sneak attack by the USSR with enough warheads surviving to attack the remaining Soviet missile silos. To do so, the missiles had to be highly accurate, be based in such a way that enough would survive a nuclear attack, carry a large number of warheads so the survivors would still ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Nuclear Weapons
This is a list of nuclear weapons listed according to country of origin, and then by type within the states. The United States, Russia, China and India are known to possess a nuclear triad, being capable to deliver nuclear weapons by land, sea and air. United States American nuclear weapons of all types – bombs, warheads, shells, and others – are numbered in the same sequence starting with the Mark 1 and () ending with the W91 (which was cancelled prior to introduction into service). All designs which were formally intended to be weapons at some point received a number designation. Pure test units which were experiments (and not intended to be weapons) are not numbered in this sequence. Early weapons were very large and could only be used as free fall bombs. These were known by "Mark" designators, like the Mark 4 which was a development of the Fat Man weapon. As weapons became more sophisticated they also became much smaller and lighter, allowing them to be used in many ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pit (nuclear Weapon)
In nuclear weapon design, the pit is the core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it. Early pits were spherical, while most modern pits are prolate spheroidal. Some weapons tested during the 1950s used pits made with uranium-235 alone, or as a composite with plutonium. All-plutonium pits are the smallest in diameter and have been the standard since the early 1960s. The pit is named after the hard core found in stonefruit such as peaches and apricots. Designs The pits of the first nuclear weapons were solid, with an ''urchin'' neutron initiator in their center. The Gadget and Fat Man used pits made of 6.2 kg of solid hot pressed plutonium-gallium alloy (at 400 °C and 200 MPa in steel dies – and ) half-spheres of diameter, with a internal cavity for the initiator. The Gadget's pit was electroplated with 0.13 mm of silver because of plutonium's susceptibility to cor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermonuclear Warhead
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits. Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material. Its multi-stage design is distinct from the usage of fusion in simpler boosted fission weapons. The first full-scale thermonuclear test (Ivy Mike) was carried out by the United States in 1952, and the concept has since been employed by at least the five recognized nuclear-weapon states and UNSC permanent members: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, China, and France. The design of all thermonuclear weapons is believed to be the ''Teller–Ulam configuration'', in which a fission bomb primary stage's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Weapon Yield
The explosive yield of a nuclear weapon is the amount of energy released such as blast, thermal, and nuclear radiation, when that particular nuclear weapon is detonated. It is usually expressed as a ''TNT equivalent'', the standardized equivalent mass of trinitrotoluene (TNT) which would produce the same energy discharge if detonated, either in kilotonnes (symbol kt, thousands of tonnes of TNT), in megatonnes (Mt, millions of tonnes of TNT). It is also sometimes expressed in terajoules (TJ); an explosive yield of one terajoule is equal to . Because the accuracy of any measurement of the energy released by TNT has always been problematic, the conventional definition is that one kilotonne of TNT is held simply to be equivalent to 1012 calories. The yield-to-weight ratio is the amount of weapon yield compared to the mass of the weapon. The practical maximum yield-to-weight ratio for fusion weapons (thermonuclear weapons) has been estimated to six megatonnes of TNT per tonne of bomb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plastic Bonded Explosive
Polymer-bonded explosives, also called PBX or plastic-bonded explosives, are explosive materials in which explosive powder is bound together in a matrix using small quantities (typically 5–10% by weight) of a synthetic polymer. PBXs are normally used for explosive materials that are not easily melted into a casting, or are otherwise difficult to form. PBX was first developed in 1952 at Los Alamos National Laboratory, as RDX embedded in polystyrene with diisooctyl phthalate (DEHP) plasticizer. HMX compositions with teflon-based binders were developed in 1960s and 1970s for gun shells and for Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) seismic experiments, although the latter experiments are usually cited as using hexanitrostilbene (HNS). Potential advantages Polymer-bonded explosives have several potential advantages: * If the polymer matrix is an elastomer (rubbery material), it tends to absorb shocks, making the PBX very insensitive to accidental detonation, and thu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermonuclear Weapon
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits. Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material. Its multi-stage design is distinct from the usage of fusion in simpler Boosted fission weapon, boosted fission weapons. The first full-scale thermonuclear test (Ivy Mike) was carried out by the United States in 1952, and the concept has since been employed by at least the five recognized List of states with nuclear weapons#Recognized nuclear-weapon states, nuclear-weapon states and United Nations Security Council, UNSC Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, permanent members: the Nuclear weapons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
