ICBM Away

The Defense Department plans to move ahead with a scheduled ballistic missile test launch in late May, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs Madelyn Creedon told Congress today. Her comments come about 10 days after DOD canceled a similar test launch out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA, because of concerns the test would lead to a reaction from North Korea.

DOD performs about three Air Force-run Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile test launches per year, with those events scheduled for April, May and September of 2013. The April launch was scrapped after a series of provocative incidents occurred in quick succession, among them a North Korean nuclear test and a B-2 stealth bomber flight over South Korea. But for now, DOD intends to keep the May test on the calendar.

"We thought it was wise to postpone for a while the last launch because of the situation on the Korean Peninsula," Creedon said. "Right now, it is the plan of the department and the plan for the Air Force to do the next launch. We have a window of May 21-23. That is the current schedule. What we’ve actually done is the system that was going to be launched, this particular launch is going to just move to the right, so we’ll move everything to the right a little bit."

Creedon, responding to questions from Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), was testifying before the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee. Udall is the subcommittee's chairman. Other witness at the unclassified portion of the hearing included Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command; Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, the Air Force's assistant chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration; Rear Adm. Terry Benedict, the director of strategic programs for the Navy; and Andrew Weber, the assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs.

Following the open portion of the hearing, Senators broke into a classified session where they met with the program manager for the Air Force's secretive Long-Range Strike Bomber, Col. Timothy Woods.