Most of the missile experiments at Kwajalein were Minuteman III operational flight tests, designed to assess the accuracy and reliability of the on-line Minuteman force.  It went something like this: A missile would be selected at random from a Minuteman squadron in the midwestern U.S., removed from it's silo, and shipped to Vandenberg A.F.B. in California.  The nuclear warheads (typical yield of 330 kilotons per warhead, one megaton total per missile) would then be removed and replaced with various sensors and telemetry equipment, in order that the inner workings of the reentry vehicles could be transmitted during flight.

The missile would then be targeted for Kwajalein, 4000 miles away, and launched.  Minuteman III missiles reach a maximum altitude of about 750 miles, far above the low-orbit realm of the Space Shuttle.  Once in space, and traveling about 15,000 miles per hour toward the target area, the missile's shroud (nose cone) falls away, revealing 3 cone shaped reentry vehicles (RVs) attached to the "payload bus".  One by one the RVs are ejected from the payload bus, each directed toward it's own individual target (the Minuteman is MIRVed, Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles).

About 25 minutes after launch the RVs (and the payload bus) reenter the atmosphere as they descend toward their targets at Kwajalein Atoll.  At an altitude of about 55 miles the RVs begin to burn white-hot from the friction of reentry, quickly becoming bright enough to cast plainly visible shadows from over 50 miles away.  For about 30 seconds they are the brightest things in the sky.  Then they splash into the lagoon, sending plumes of water hundreds of feet into the air.

A Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Reentry over Kwajalein Atoll.  The missile had been launched about 25 minutes earlier from Vandenburg AFB in California, 4000 miles away.  The short streak at upper right is the "payload bus" burning away in the upper atmosphere, 55 miles up.  The three reentry vehicles (dummy warheads) are targeted for points in Kwajalein Lagoon 20 to 50 miles away from the Super RADOT Telescope on Kwajalein, which is shown here.  Lights on the horizon are Ebeye Island, three miles away.

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A Minuteman III reentry.  One RV was targeted for a point in the southern part of the lagoon, the other two targets were in the northern lagoon.

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Two Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Reentries, each with three Reentry Vehicles.  One of the missiles arrived 30 minutes before the other.

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Another dual Minuteman III Reentry.  The missile's payload bus burns away in just a few seconds, appearing as a dense swarm of slow moving meteors.  Each of the Reentry Vehicles (RVs) burns for about 30 seconds as it descends through the atmosphere.  Red streaks are running lights of "Caribou" aircraft making post-mission trips to and from Roi-Namur Island, 50 miles to the north.

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Two Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Reentries.  For this mission I was working at the optical tracking station on Legan Island, instead of my regular station SR1 on Kwajalein.