Trident II D5 night flight mystery
Alexander Levakov, Senior Research Fellow, Ph.D
October, 2019
About missile
UGM-133 Trident II
The UGM-133A Trident II, or Trident D5 is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale, California, and deployed with the American and British navies. It was first deployed in March 1990, and remains in service. The Trident II Strategic Weapons System is an improved SLBM with greater accuracy, payload, and range than the earlier Trident C-4. It is a key element of the U.S. strategic nuclear triad and strengthens U.S. strategic deterrence. The Trident II is considered to be a durable sea-based system capable of engaging many targets. It enhances the U.S. position in strategic arms negotiation with performance and payload flexibility that can accommodate active treaty initiatives (see New START). The Trident II’s increased payload allows nuclear deterrence to be accomplished with fewer submarines, and its high accuracy – approaching that of land-based missiles – enables it to be used as a first strike weapon.
Trident II missiles are carried by 14 US Ohio and four British Vanguard-class submarines, with 24 missiles on each Ohio class and 16 missiles on each Vanguard class (the number of missiles on Ohio-class submarines will be reduced to 20 each in coming years, in compliance with the New Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty). There have been 176 successful test flights of the D5 missile since design completion in 1989, the most recent being from USS Nebraska in September 2019. There have been fewer than 10 test flights that were failures, the most recent being from HMS Vengeance off the coast of Florida in June 2016. The D5 is the sixth in a series of missile generations deployed since the sea-based deterrent program began 60 years ago. The Trident D5LE (life-extension) version will remain in service until 2042.
For more information about Trient II D5 see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-133.html
https://rpubs.com/alex-lev/200551
https://rpubs.com/alex-lev/377492
https://rpubs.com/alex-lev/260829
2015 night flight image
One of November nights in 2015 there was something unusual in the sky: A mysterious light that streaked across San Diego’s night sky Saturday, visible as far away as Nevada and Arizona, was a Trident missile test-fired by the Navy. The test was part of a scheduled, on-going system evaluation test, said Cmdr. Ryan Perry with the Navy’s Third Fleet.
2019 night flight image
No less than four D5 Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles were fired from the USS Nebraska off the Southern California coast between September 4th and September 6th, 2019. We detailed this rare test in an article posted shortly after it occurred. Now, a video we received shows one of these launches from the perspective on an Airbus airliner’s cockpit as it flew from Guadalajara to Tijuana, Mexico.
Depressed trajectory and CEP
As we can see both images of Trident II D5 or UGM 133A night flight show us depressed or flat trajectory (\(7.8^o\) in 2015 and \(13.8^o\) in 2019) used for short time RV delivery to the ground target.
Recently US President Donald Trump declared “Our nuclear was getting very tired. Now we have it in, as we would say, tippy-top shape. Tippy top. We have new and we have renovated and it’s incredible.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9974575/donald-trump-boasts-nukes-iran-threat/
But there is some problem when missile goes on flat not parabola trajectory: circular error probable due to aerodynamics increases making accuracy inadequate. Especially when taking into account decreased yield of warhead - 6 Kt instead of 100 Kt or 450 Kt.
Conclusion
So what’s it all about?
- Since 2015 US has been proceeding with Trident II D5 depressed trajectory flight tests.
- Taking into account Trident II D5 unprecedented accuracy CEP = 90 meters and reliability (10 failures in 176 test events) together with new low yield warhead of 6 Kt one would assume great improvements achieved by Pentagon since then.
- All in all the threat of nuclear war has drastically increased.