Peacekeeper missile system being tested

The LGM-118A Peacekeeper, initially known as the "MX missile" (for Missile-eXperimental), was a land-based ICBM deployed by the United States starting in 1986. A total of 50 missiles were deployed. Under the START II treaty, which never entered into force, the missiles were to be removed from the U.S. nuclear arsenal in 2005, leaving the LGM-30 Minuteman as the only type of land-based ICBM in the U.S. arsenal. Despite the demise of START II, the last of the LGM-118A "Peacekeeper" ICBMs (but not their warheads) were decommissioned on September 19, 2005. Current plans are to switch 500 decommissioned Peacekeepers' W87/Mk-21 warheads to the Minuteman III. ^[1] Among the reasons cited for decommissioning of the Peacekeeper ICBM was its failure to achieve the program's range objectives. ^[2]

The Peacekeeper was a MIRVed missile; the MX could carry up to 10 re-entry vehicles, each armed with a 300-kiloton W87 warhead/MK-21 RVs (twenty times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II^[3]).

Test launch of a Peacekeeper ICBM by the 1st Strategic Aerospace Division (1 STRAD), Vandenberg AFB, CA (USAF)
Type	Intercontinental ballistic missile

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