Midgetman Missile Approaches Important Test : Weaponry: Rockwell officials will be watching eagerly as a 4,200-mile flight to a Pacific island is attempted Thursday.

After two earlier failures, the Midgetman nuclear missile will undergo an important Air Force flight test Thursday that Rockwell International Corp. officials here will be watching closely.

The test comes at a time when Congress is focusing its attention less on the development of the multiple-warhead MX missile and more on the smaller, mobile Midgetman as the bulwark of the United States’ next generation of strategic missiles.

Rockwell International’s Autonetics Strategic Systems Division in Anaheim began work on the Midgetman in 1984 and is developing the weapon’s guidance and control system under a $30.6-million Air Force contract awarded in October.

The launch, scheduled to take place after 11 a.m. Thursday at Vandenberg Air Force Base, is the first scheduled flight test of the Midgetman since an aborted launch in November. Before that there was an in-flight failure in May, 1989.

“It is a very important test in the research and development picture, but it is not a make or break test for the program,” said Jeff Mielke, an Air Force spokesman. “We’ve had problems and we are looking forward to this.”

The missile is scheduled to fly about 4,200 miles from Vandenberg to the Kwajalein Missile Range, located on an island in the Pacific Ocean.

In the 1989 flight test, Mielke said, the missile was intentionally destroyed 70 seconds after launch because its second-stage nozzle, made of a lightweight material, proved not to be strong enough.

Mielke said the lightweight nozzle has been redone with heavier material used successfully on the MX missile.

The second test of the Midgetman was scrubbed in November after the failure of an on-board battery that monitors test performance, Mielke said. A total of 16 flight tests are planned through 1997.

Rockwell has a big stake in both the MX and Midgetman programs as the developer of the missiles’ guidance and control systems. The company is hoping its Midgetman work will lead to a $500-million, full-scale development contract later this year.

The Bush Administration’s budget calls for deployment of 500 Midgetman missiles beginning in 1997 or ’98. The fate of both programs depends in part on the scope of strategic arms control agreements in the future.

But as the programs approach scheduled deployment dates in the late 1990s, the Air Force may have to choose between one or the other, said Alexis Cain, research director at the Defense Budget Project, a Washington think tank.

“The Administration has backed off on the idea that it’s an urgent need to deploy mobile ICBMs,” Cain said. “They will develop it and re-evaluate it in the future if the arms control agreements don’t happen.”