silo prior to a test launch, March 1, 1967.
A Sprint missile test launch at
White Sands
Missile Range, New Mexico
on October 10, 1967.
|
Approximately 60 nuclear-armed Sprint missiles were deployed as part of the Safeguard ABM system in North Dakota in 1975. Employing a low-kiloton yield warhead, the Sprint was designed to intercept incoming Soviet warheads inside the atmosphere as a last-ditch defense against weapons which were not destroyed by the longer range Spartan missile (armed with a 5 megaton warhead). The Sprint was 27 feet (8.2 meters) long, weighed 7,500 pounds (3,409 kilograms), and had a range of 25 miles (40 kilometers). The Sprint missile utilized solid propellants. |
An aerial view of the Stanley R. Mickelson
Safeguard complex in Nekoma, North Dakota,
the only operational antiballistic missile system ever deployed by the United
States.
The pyramid-shaped building is the missile site radar, used to track incoming
missiles
and guide Spartan and Sprint missiles to their targets. A separate long-range
detection radar
was located further north at Concrete, North Dakota. The missile field in the
foreground
contains reinforced underground launchers for thirty Spartan and sixteen Sprint
missiles
(an additional fifty or so Sprint missiles were deployed at four remote launch
sites).
The complex was deactivated in 1976 after being operational for less than four
months.
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