Missile From Vandenberg Lights Sky
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VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE — A Minuteman II missile launched Monday night from this coastal base lit up the sky across Southern California with a multicolored vapor trail seen as far away as Phoenix.
The unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile, reconfigured with a new payload nose section, blasted off at 8:39 p.m. The missile was designed to release nine target objects that will be tracked by another missile, the Santa Barbara County base said in a statement.
Some observers who saw the squiggly vapor reported seeing an explosion about the time of the launch. But the launch went as planned, according to base officials and Jerry Acosta, regional operations officer for the Federal Aviation Administration in Lawndale.
Authorities said they received hundreds of calls from throughout Southern California from residents who reported seeing the contrail, which left a swath of color across the early evening sky.
The launch was the third of the so-called Multi-Service Launch System. The first was last December and the second in January.
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