Original vintage 1960s Avco Corporation advertisement for the company's nuclear missile warhead nose cones for the Titan and Minuteman nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) - "An integrated guidance, control and checkout system that must be buried in a silo for years and ready to function perfectly at a moment's notice"
Dimensions: Approx. 6.5 inches wide by 9.5 inches high.
The Minuteman LGM-30 ICBM
As the Cold War progressed and missiles became more numerous and advanced, U.S. defense planners recognized their ICBM arsenal was becoming increasing vulnerable. The limitations of liquid-fueled, gantry-launched missiles, such as Atlas and Titan sparked fears that a Soviet first strike could potentially negate the U.S. ability to retaliate effectively.
For several reasons, the Minuteman was America’s first modern ICBM. Chief among these was the missile’s use of solid fuel. Using solid fuel meant that the missile did not require fueling prior to launch, differentiating it from the Atlas and Titan. This substantially reduced the time between receiving launch orders and the missile launch. Moreover, solid fuel is generally considered more reliable – solid-fuel engines are generally less complex, which reduces the number of failure points and simplifies maintenance.
Furthermore, solid fuel is less volatile, does not leak, or require refrigeration. This stands in contrast to the liquid oxygen and Aerozine fuels which caused several major accidents with missiles like the Atlas and Titan.
To this day, the Minuteman remains in service with the Air Force Global Strike Command – as of at least 2024, the LGM-30G (Version 3) is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States and represents the land leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, along with the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and nuclear weapons carried by long-range strategic bombers.
Development of the Minuteman began in the mid-1950s when basic research indicated that a solid-fuel rocket motor could stand ready to launch for long periods of time, in contrast to liquid-fueled rockets that required fueling before launch and so might be destroyed in a surprise attack. The missile was named for the colonial minutemen of the American Revolutionary War, who could be ready to fight on short notice.
The Minuteman entered service in 1962 as a deterrence weapon that could hit Soviet cities with a second strike and countervalue counterattack if the U.S. was attacked. However, the development of the United States Navy (USN) UGM-27 Polaris, which addressed the same role, allowed the Air Force to modify the Minuteman, boosting its accuracy enough to attack hardened military targets, including Soviet missile silos.
The Minuteman II entered service in 1965 with a host of upgrades to improve its accuracy and survivability in the face of an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system the Soviets were known to be developing. In 1970, the Minuteman III became the first deployed ICBM with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV): three smaller warheads that improved the missile's ability to strike targets defended by ABMs. However, the Minutemen III missiles were later "de-MIRVed"; since 2016 they have had only a single warhead per missile, either a W78 (335 kT) or W87 (300 kT).
North American Aviation & Its Autonetics Division
North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F-86 Sabre jet fighter, the X-15 rocket plane, the B-1 Lancer, the Apollo command and service module, the second stage of the Saturn V rocket, and the Space Shuttle orbiter – among many other airframes.
Autonetics was a division of North American Aviation that produced various avionics but is best known for their inertial navigation systems used in submarines and ICBMs. Its 188-acre facility in Anaheim, California, with 36,000 employees, was the city's largest employer. Through a series of mergers, Autonetics – like NAA – is now part of Boeing.
Autonetics originated in NAA's Technical Research Laboratory, a small unit in the Los Angeles Division's engineering department, in 1945. In 1946, the laboratory won an Army Air Forces contract to develop a 175-to-500-mile range glide missile.
Autonetics built an office computer system (RECOMP), and was responsible for the guidance and control system for the Boeing-built Minuteman missiles. The division ultimately produced the Monica family of microcomputers, the D-17B Minuteman I computer, and the D-37B and D-37C Minuteman II computers, in which micro-miniaturization reduced weight by two-thirds. Autonetics also developed and tested flight programs for the D37D Minuteman III computer.
In 1955, the rocket engine operations were spun off into a separate division as Rocketdyne. This division furnished engines for the Redstone, Jupiter, Thor, Delta, and Atlas missiles, and for NASA's Saturn family of launch vehicles. North American designed and built the airframe for the X-15, a rocket-powered aircraft that first flew in 1959 – and whose pilots also were issued the Bulova Accutron electric watch.
In 1959, North American built the first of several Little Joe boosters used to test the launch escape system for the Project Mercury spacecraft. In 1960, the new CEO Lee Atwood decided to focus on the space program, and the company became the prime contractor for the Apollo command and service module, a larger Little Joe II rocket to test Apollo's launch escape system, and the S-II second stage of the Saturn V.
The fatal Apollo 1 fire in January 1967 was initially blamed on the company in the press, although a congressional hearing later ruled otherwise. In September, it merged with Rockwell-Standard, and the merged company became known as North American Rockwell.
Rockwell International's defense and space divisions (including the North American Aviation divisions Autonetics and Rocketdyne) were sold to Boeing in December 1996. Initially called Boeing North American, these groups were integrated with Boeing's Defense division. Rocketdyne was eventually sold by Boeing to UTC Pratt & Whitney in 2005. UTC later sold Rocketdyne to Aerojet (GenCorp) in 2013.