US Launches Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Test on Election Night

The Space Force said the test ‘is part of routine and periodic activities’ to demonstrate the United States’ nuclear deterrent power.

The U.S. military launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with multiple targetable re-entry vehicles from aboard the Airborne Launch Control System from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on Nov. 5, 2024. AIRMAN 1ST CLASS OLGA HOUTSMA/U.S. SPACE FORCE

The U.S. military test launched an unarmed yet nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile on the night of the election.

At 11:01 p.m. Pacific Time on Nov. 5, the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), equipped with multiple targetable re-entry vehicles, was fired from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California to the U.S. military’s Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in the Marshall Islands, southeast of Japan.