The SM-68 Titan (individual variants later designated HGM-25 Titan I and LGM-25 Titan II) was the designation of two

intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

s developed for the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

. The Titan I and

Titan II The Titan II was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company from the earlier Titan I missile. Titan II was originally designed and used as an ICBM, but was later adapted as a medium-lift space ...

missiles were operational between 1962 and 1987 during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. These missiles, particularly the Titan II, were the basis of the Titan family of

space launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multist ...

s. Titan was originally built as a backup to the

SM-65 Atlas The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General ...

. The Titan I used

RP-1 RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) and similar fuels like RG-1 and T-1 are highly refined kerosene formulations used as rocket fuel. Liquid-fueled rockets that use RP-1 as fuel are known as kerolox rockets. In their engines, RP- ...

and

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen, sometimes abbreviated as LOX or LOXygen, is a clear cyan liquid form of dioxygen . It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which is ongoing. Physical ...

propellants and required around fifteen minutes to load the rocket and raise it to a launch position. The more powerful Titan II used

nitrogen tetroxide Dinitrogen tetroxide, commonly referred to as nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and occasionally (usually among ex-USSR/Russian rocket engineers) as amyl, is the chemical compound N2O4. It is a useful reagent in chemical synthesis. It forms an equilibrium ...

and

hydrazine Hydrazine is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a simple pnictogen hydride, and is a colourless flammable liquid with an ammonia-like odour. Hydrazine is highly hazardous unless handled in solution as, for example, hydraz ...

, allowing it to be stored with propellant loaded, giving it a much shorter response time.

Titan I

The Titan I was the first version of the Titan family of rockets. It began as a backup

ICBM An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

project in case the

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

was delayed. It was a two-stage rocket propelled by

and

. Using RP-1 and LOX meant that the Titan I did not have a quick launch sequence. It took about fifteen minutes to load LOX on the first missile at a complex, raise it topside and launch it, with two other missiles following at about eight-minute intervals. Titan I was operational from early 1962 to mid-1965. Several

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

units operated the Titan I: *

568th Strategic Missile Squadron The 568th Strategic Missile Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 462d Strategic Aerospace Wing at Larson Air Force Base, Washington. It was equipped with the first-generation SM-68 Titan I intercont ...

Larson AFB Larson Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base located five miles (8 km) northwest of the central business district (CBD) of Moses Lake, in Grant County, Washington. After its closure in 1966, the airport facility became ...

, Moses Lake,

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

* 569th Strategic Missile Squadron, Mountain Home AFB, Mt Home,

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

851st Strategic Missile Squadron The 851st Strategic Missile Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 456th Strategic Aerospace Wing, stationed at Beale Air Force Base, California. It was equipped with the HGM-25A Titan I intercontinent ...

Beale AFB Beale Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force base in Yuba County, California. It is outside Linda, about east of the towns of Marysville and Yuba City, and about north of Sacramento. The host unit at Beale is the 9th Rec ...

, Marysville,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

850th Strategic Missile Squadron The 850th Strategic Missile Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 44th Strategic Missile Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, where it was inactivated on 25 March 1965. The squadron was ...

Ellsworth AFB Ellsworth Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force (USAF) base located about northeast of Rapid City, South Dakota, just north of the town of Box Elder. The host unit at Ellsworth is the 28th Bomb Wing (28 BW). Assigned to the Glob ...

, Rapid City,

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

451st Strategic Missile Wing 451st may refer to: * 451st Air Expeditionary Wing, a provisional United States Air Force Air Combat Command unit, currently in Afghanistan * 451st Expeditionary Sustainment Command (ESC) is a subordinate command of 79th Sustainment Support Command ...

(formerly 703rd)

Lowry AFB Lowry Air Force Base (Lowry Field from 1938–1948) is a former United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) training base during World War II and a United States Air Force (USAF) training base during the Cold War. From 1955-1958, it served as the i ...

, Denver,

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

Titan II

Most Titan rockets were the

, which could carry a W-53

nuclear warhead A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...

with a nine megaton yield, making it the most powerful ICBM on-standby in the US nuclear arsenal. These were deployed in three squadrons of 18 missiles each, in

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

, and

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

. All of the ICBM Titan II missile sites have been decommissioned since the retirement of the Titan II as an ICBM in 1987, but the Titan Missile Museum on

Interstate 19 Interstate 19 (I-19) is a north–south Interstate Highway located entirely within the US state of Arizona. I-19 travels from Nogales, roughly from the Mexican border, to Tucson, at I-10. The highway also travels through the cities of ...

south of

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

, has preserved one deactivated launch site. The Titan II was a two-stage ICBM that was used by the US Air Force from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. The Titan II used a

hypergolic A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. The ...

combination of

and

for propellant. In addition to its use as an ICBM, twelve Titan II missiles were converted to launch Gemini spacecraft for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

, ten of which were crewed. Following retirement, a further thirteen were converted to the ''Titan 23G'' configuration, and used to launch satellites, and the

Clementine A clementine (''Citrus × clementina'') is a tangor, a citrus fruit hybrid between a willowleaf mandarin orange ( ''C.'' × ''deliciosa'') and a sweet orange (''C. × sinensis''), named in honor of Clément Rodier, a French missionary who f ...

Lunar probe. The last Titan II launch occurred in 2003.

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sm-68 Titan Intercontinental ballistic missiles of the United States Cold War nuclear missiles of the United States

Titan I

Titan II

See also

References