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Minuteman III ready to lower into Silo

Before Minuteman ... the nation stood vulnerable to nuclear attack. The corridor of Space had suddenly opened. Nuclear weapons could be boosted through Space to devastate this continent ... could reach our heartland in a matter of minutes after launch. America needed a credible deterrent - one that could react almost instantly.

The military quickly responded - and Minuteman was conceived. in idea only – its reality lay far beyond the state-of-the-art. To make it real, the Air Force and industry embarked on a technical adventure that focused talent, ingenuity, and scientific daring on the nation's first quick-reaction intercontinental ballistic missile.

On February 1, 1961 – in an incredibly short time span from concept to flight test Minuteman lifted off on its first flight. its complexity, reliability, and rapid response capability were unparalleled in history. Today, after Minuteman duty of more than a decade, no aggressor has dared to use space as a corridor for attack. Three generations of Minuteman have stood guard and helped keep peace on our shores.

These pages relate how Minuteman performs its role as a national defender ... and how, at the same time, it has become a model for costeffective program management ... a technology pacesetter ... an economic factor ... and a contributor to the nation's strength and wellbeing through technology spinoffs.

Minuteman III into the Silo

Setting Up Minuteman III

Defender of 200 Million People

Defense of the United States depends on the strength of three strategic forces known as the "Triad" . . . consisting of Minuteman missiles based on land ... Polaris/Poseidon missiles on the seas ... and manned bombers in the air.

No effective wav exists at present to stop or completely blunt an enemy attack once it has been launched. Under today's Triad concept, however, our three strategic forces could retaliate against attack and inflict unacceptable damage on an aggressor. No foe could possibly knock out all three forces simultaneously ... and it is unlikely that any aggressor would risk the strike-back capability of even one of the three.

The Minuteman missile force, alone, poses an almost impossible array of targets to a potential enemy – 1000 missiles, scattered across six states in the center of our continent. Each, deeply embedded in its underground silo, stands alert 24 hours a day, year in and year out, ready for instant launch on command.

As performance requirements have heightened, Minuteman has moved technologically ahead of the threat. its flexibility to incorporate improvements - without requiring a totally new weapon system - has been unique. This inherent flexibility has lengthened the life span from deployment to obsolescence and has retained cost-effective weapons superiority.

As national policy has shifted, for example, from "massive retaliatory strength" to controlled flexible response, Minuteman has been transformed functionally and physically. The advanced Minuteman III can carry multiple re-entry vehicles armed with nuclear warheads.

Among other advanced technologies, microelectronics has increased the capabilities of the missile and boosted its reliability to ever higher levels. Other improvements toughen the force to better absorb and survive the shock of a nuclear attack. Safeguards have been incorporated to avoid inadvertent launch.

Today, long after its initial deployment, Minuteman stands as one of the most sophisticated weapon systems in the U.S. arsenal in its targeting capabilities and long-term reliability and maintainability.

Minuteman's abilities to survive an attack, respond rapidly, and then reach a target provide a retaliatory credibility that deters attack against American soil and contributes to peace and stability around the world.

As with all weapons, improvements must continue or the weapon effectiveness decreases. Minuteman III is being improved ... in accuracy and in silo hardness.

Missile Wing Locations = + Test and Support Bases, and SAC Headquarters (Omaha) = O

Model for Cost-Effective Management

Since 1968, the Minuteman program each year has reported to Congress exactly what was planned and how much was needed to do the job. Each time, the program has achieved its goals-within the dollars allotted.

Even prior to today's tight fiscal environment, the Minuteman program, since 1967, has consistently exceeded performance requirements and operated within budget, and on schedule.

As associate prime contractor for the guidance and control (G&C) systems, Autonetics has supplied 99% of the electronics for all three generations of Minuteman missiles the inertial navigators, airborne computers, checkout equipment, and tie-in electronics all the equipment that keeps the missiles ready for launch and guides and controls them to the target.

Currently, for Minuteman III, this is Autonetics' record for meeting requirements:

More than 290% better reliability

· 30% better accuracy

· $28.5 million cost underrun

The high reliability demonstrated by Autonctics-built equipment for Minuteman III saved the Air Force an additional $100 million by eliminating large numbers of spare parts and maintenance actions otherwise required.

How has Minuteman's impressive record been accomplished?

Unique Teamwork

The Air Force and its G&C contractor through the years have established a working relationship of finely tuned precision. Since 1958, when the urgent missile requirements sent the Air Force and Autonetics off on their mission to create the ICBM system, coordinated teamwork has been the key. This continuity of experience permits rapid solutions to complex problems, whether for schedule, hardware, or fiscal economies in production and management.

Management of Technology

Technology is tightly managed. From the R&D phase on through production, technology is targeted on reliability, producibility, maintainability ... and performance in the field – all within budget.

Design techniques have allowed Autonetics to upgrade the guidance and control hardware rather than build completely new systems. Smaller and smaller data packages are required, and commonality in every area possible has increased reliability and reduced costs.

The most advanced systems engineering, configuration management, schedule planning, and quality control techniques work together to translate Minuteman designs into hardware of long operational life.

Innovative Program Management

Managing the hardware and software and the hundreds of subcontractors and suppliers for a program as complex as Minuteman calls for strict control. Some of the techniques Autonetics uses are necessarily complex, and others are surprisingly simple for the enormous jobs they must do.

Early in the program, when many other major programs were only starting to integrate such aids as PERT, the DOD 375 Series, and Physics of Reliability, these techniques were already operational on Minuteman. Numerous others of strictly Minuteman evolution help keep the program on target.

Minuteman subcontractors are managed as exactingly as Autonetics' own production inhouse. Costs inside and outside company facilities are under firm control - not a dollar can be spent until it's budgeted. 'rhis was a major factor contributing to the company's $28.5 million underrun on Minuteman III.

An example of just one of the many effective management tools is closed circuit television, skillfully used for visibility, communication, and work improvement. Minuteman has pioneered in the CCTV technique, using it to motivate, inform, and train. Frequently it serves as a vehicle for Air Force management or Autonetics program managers to reach all Minuteman employees simultaneously. Other programs are beamed to special groups at their work stations to demonstrate new techniques being adopted for intricate production work. CCTV reports by management help keep the entire Minuteman team aware of program goals and progress - both the achievements and the problems.

A program as large and long-running as Minuteman is bound to run into obstacles at times during its history. one of those times came in the middle '60's on Minuteman II when technology had to leapfrog into a completely new state-of-the-art called "microelectronics." Breakthroughs were required to substantially increase Minuteman capabilities to meet the national threat.

To push the technology and to come through on schedule, Autonetics launched an "improvement program" that started at the back gate and extended all the way through every operation - and got the job on track. That's history now, but it served to sharpen the team - to give it the leanness and drive and technological edge that led to the nearperfect record that typifies Minuteman III today.

Through innovative management over the last decade, both the Air Force Minuteman SPO and the G&C associate prime contractor have set an example of efficient program management - dollar conscious and performance oriented.

(Program Mgr C. Robert Kazebee at left Value Engineering improvements to Minuteman proposed by Autonetics and accepted by the Air Force have saved the government more than $40 million since inception of the program.

Minuteman III was the first major weapon in aerospace to become operational with essentially complete depot maintenance "on line" to back up the using command all electronics, from subsystems to black-boxes.

Technology Pacesetter

Repeatedly, Minuteman has set the pace of technology for industry and defense by achieving electronics breakthroughs and introducing new techniques for increasing capabilities and reducing costs.

It started with Minuteman I when Autonetics engineers moved from vacuum tube technology to transistors and new systems engineering techniques to meet the unprecedented reliability and performance requirements established for the missile. To improve the state-of-the-art of the 25,000 components that were to go into each Minuteman, Autonetics instituted a history-making reliability program among suppliers across the country. The result: a 100 to-1 improvement in electronic components benefits of which industry and the nation still reap today.

The next-generation missile, Minuteman II, scored a world landmark in the first large-scale application of microelectronics to a major weapon system. Thick-film hybrids and bipolar integrated circuits throughout Minuteman II increased the missile's accuracy, reliability, flexibility, payload, and range to keep pace with growing strengths of other world powers. To illustrate improvements made possible by this advanced microelectronics technology, Minuteman Il's guidance computer was shrunk to one-half the weight of its predecessor, one-half the size, and required only one-half the power - but had two and one-half times the memory capacity and double the functional capability.

The Minuteman program led in application of another advanced technology - radiation hardening - when Autonetics scientists and engineers were required, almost overnight, to find ways for increasing missile survivability against nuclear attack. Accordingly, Minuteman II missiles with increased nuclear survivability were rapidly deployed . and a whole new technology was born.

Soon afterwards, Minuteman III introduced the missile's ability to hurl not one but multiple nuclear warheads at an enemy-all aimed at different targets. The III also increased still further the systems survivability ... once again vastly expanded the digital computer "heart of the missile" . . . increased flight-time capability ... added an innovative liquid injection thrust vector control ... and unveiled a new post-boost propulsion system for ultra-refined targeting.

Through its flexibility to accept the massive transfusions of increased capabilities through the years, the Minuteman system has led in still another concept -"force improvement." Without this flexibility, whole new weapon systems would have been required to incorporate the improvements needed for credible defense. Instead, Minuteman has been able to undergo numerous transformations internally, compatible in essence with the missile profile, ground support equipment, launch control systems, and missile silos -at reduced performance risk to the military, and at significant savings to the Department of Defense.

Among Minuteman III's "firsts" is the G&C system's ability to function in the zero-g environment of space.

"MIRV"ing of MinutemanIII gives each missile the capability to carry multiple warheads as well as penetration aids intended to insure that a retaliator force could reach the targets.

The GGB4 gyro built by Autonetics for Minuteman III guidance and control systems recently passed 15 million hours of operation without a failure-comparable to operating failure-free since before the Fall of Rome.

A new self-alignment technique at Autonetics provides automatic primary alignment and cuts alignment time of the guidance set almost in half.

To cite only a few, here are other areas in which the three generations of Minuteman have set the pace: standardized integrated circuits for reliability and cost-effectiveness ... volume production of the first truly reliable multilayer circuit boards ... commonality of parts ... software redesign of systems in place of hardware redesign ... and years-long unattended operation of electronic systems.

Probably no higher tribute can be paid to Minuteman technology than the advertisements of dozens of manufacturers in national magazines carrying the assuring words, "Minuteman Reliability."

With Benefits for All

The technology that produced Minuteman now filters back in orders-of-magnitude to benefit the society that made it possible. The American people today enjoy products based on technology developed for Minuteman, in the form of high-temperature ceramic materials for home and industry ... automotive components ... medical instrumentation commercial aviation . . . pocket calculators and home entertainment products.

· From the computer technology of Minuteman, accelerated strides have been made in process control for industry, public utilities, medicine, and environmental and resources management.

· General-purpose computers that trace their ancestry back to Minuteman microelectronics are now available in desk-top instead of room-size models for science and industry - and within economic reach.

· Radiation-hardening techniques are in hand for transfer to all types of space communications and research.

The volume production of microelectronics for Minuteman II was largely responsible for catapulting the new technology into nationwide use for consumer and industrial products. Today, Autonetics puts as many as 6244 transistors on a single tiny chip that has the electronics density of about 400,000 circuit elements per square inch.

Autonetics is constantly developing microelectronics technology that may be applicable to Minuteman in the future. This is a MOS/LSI (metal-oxide-semiconductor/ large-scale-integrated) device developed for digital computers operating in severe environments.

Eventually these and countless other improvements for a better life would have come - but through technologies created in the onrush for Minuteman, these dividends are ours here and now.

Already-achieved Minuteman technological advances will, in turn, spawn still more benefits to contribute answers to the social and economic needs of the nation . . and the world.

This is not the End of the Story

The specified lifetime of the Minuteman missile was originally 3 years. Already, Minuteman has delivered an operational life of 12 years - giving more than four times the nation's anticipated value.

By its extraordinary record of operational readiness without need for planned maintenance and spares ... an estimated extra $1.1 billion in logistics support has been saved. The missile has the highest in-commission rate and the lowest operational cost of any strategic weapons system in the world.

Today, Minuteman continues its long duty, performing a major role in the Triad concept of national defense ... one of the best buys in history.

With continued good management and technological stewardship. . . the success story of Minuteman may well have just begun.

MINUTEMAN III SCOREBOARD

ACCURACY – Guidance and Control (G&C)

Contribution to weapon system accuracy approximately 30% better than specified. (Provides margin to maintain desired accuracy under adverse in-silo and in-flight conditions)

WEIGHT -- G&C (Including PBPS)

3% better than requirements.

(Achieved in spite of Minuteman III's additional complexity over Minuteman II)

RELIABILITY -- G&C In-Silo

Based on over 20 million operational hours experience, the MTBF observed to date exceeds the prediction by a factor of 2.9.

(This experience includes over 15 million hours of failtire-free gyro operation)

CONTRACT PERFORMANCE

Performance continues on-schedule and ahead of requirements.

(Autonetics has been commended by the Air Force and DOD for contract underruns exceeding $28 million)

COST EFFFCTIVENESS

The currently observed in-silo reliability indicates that Minuteman III has surpassed required high levels of operational readiness, and will sign

ificantly contribute to reduced maintenance and repair costs.

The accuracy and weight achievements are expected to further improve the cost effectiveness of Minuteman III over that of its predecessor.