Strategic Weapons: Merging Peacekeeper and Minuteman

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February 25, 2006: The U.S. Air Force ran a successful test of the Minuteman III this month. The test was to make sure warhead components from the retired Peacekeeper missile would work on the Minuteman. The United States has 500 Minuteman III ICBMs in service, and plans to keep them until about 2020. At that point, a new ICBM would have replaced the Minuteman, which first entered service, as the Minuteman I, in the 1960s.