The US tested a doomsday ballistic missile off the California coast Tuesday night — as war raged in the Middle East.
The Minuteman III ballistic missile — which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima — launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base near Santa Barbara at 11 p.m.
The unarmed rocket, known as GT 254, hit its intended target near the Marshall Islands in the west-central Pacific Ocean, according to the US Space Force.
“By continually assessing varying mission profiles, we are able to enhance the performance of the entire [Intercontinental Ballistic Missile] fleet, ensuring the maximum level of readiness for the land-based leg of the nation’s nuclear triad.”
The test launch comes just days after the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran, killing the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at his compound in Tehran — setting off a war in the region.
President Trump later vowed to step up strikes on Iran, warning, “The big one is coming.”
At least 127 earthquakes have been recorded in a highly restricted region of central Nevada that contains several major US military and nuclear-related facilities.
The seismic activity began on Saturday, with the latest tremor detected on Wednesday.
The quakes ranged from magnitude 3.3 down to about 1.4, striking in the vicinity of the Tonopah Test Range, sometimes referred to as ‘Area 52.’
The remote military range near the town of Tonopah is not primarily used for nuclear detonations, but it has long been linked to US nuclear weapons programs.
The site is used to test how nuclear weapons would be delivered, including experiments where aircraft drop non-nuclear versions of bombs to study their performance.
It has also been used for missile and aircraft testing, and during the Cold War, hosted experiments in which mock nuclear bombs were dropped to simulate real weapons deployments.
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