W87

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W87

The W87 is an American thermonuclear missile warhead. It was created for use on the MX or Peacekeeper

LGM-118A Peacekeeper

The LGM-118A Peacekeeper, initially known as the "MX missile" , was a land-based Intercontinental ballistic missile deployed by the United States starting in 1986....
ICBM

Intercontinental ballistic missile

An intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, is a long-range ballistic missile typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery, that is, delivering one or more nuclear weapon....
, 50 of which, with up to 12 warhead

Warhead

Typically, a warhead is the explosive material and detonator that is delivered by a missile, rocket, or torpedo....
s per missile, were deployed during the 1986-2005 period.

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Encyclopedia

The W87 is an American thermonuclear missile warhead. It was created for use on the MX or Peacekeeper

LGM-118A Peacekeeper

The LGM-118A Peacekeeper, initially known as the "MX missile" , was a land-based Intercontinental ballistic missile deployed by the United States starting in 1986....
ICBM

Intercontinental ballistic missile

Warhead

Typically, a warhead is the explosive material and detonator that is delivered by a missile, rocket, or torpedo....
s per missile, were deployed during the 1986-2005 period. Starting in 2007, 200 of the W87 warheads from now-retired MX/Peacekeeer missiles will be backfitted onto much older Minuteman III missiles, with only one warhead on each missile.

Description

Design of the W87 started in February 1982 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California is a scientific research laboratory founded by the University of California in 1952....
and production of the warhead began in July 1986 and ended in December 1988. Its design is reportedly somewhat similar to the W88

W88

The W88 is a United States nuclear warhead, with an estimated yield of 475 kiloton , and is small enough to fit on MIRVed missiles. The W88 was designed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1970s....
, though that warhead was designed at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico....
. The weapons were refurbished for an extended lifespan by the National Nuclear Security Administration

National Nuclear Security Administration

The United States National Nuclear Security Administration is part of the United States Department of Energy. It works to improve national security through the military application of nuclear energy....
's Life Extension Program.

The W87 design includes all modern safety features, including insensitive high explosives LX-17 and PBX-9502 (primary component TATB

TATB

TATB, or triaminotrinitrobenzene, is an Aromaticity explosive, based on the basic six-carbon benzene ring structure with three nitro functional groups and three amine groups attached, alternating around the ring....
), a fire resistant pit

Nuclear weapon design

Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a Nuclear weapons to detonate. There are three basic design types....
, and advanced arming and fuzing safety features.

The original yield

Nuclear weapon yield

The explosive yield of a nuclear weapon is the amount of energy, called the yield, discharged when a nuclear weapon is detonated, expressed usually in the equivalent mass of trinitrotoluene , either in kilotons or megatons , but sometimes also in terajoules ....
of the W87 was 300 kilotons of TNT

TNT equivalent

TNT equivalent is a method of quantifying the energy released in explosions. The tonne of TNT is used as a Units of energy, approximately equivalent to the energy released in the detonation of this amount of Trinitrotoluene....
, but has the announced ability to be upgraded to a yield of 475 kilotons, presumably by using more HEU

Enriched uranium

Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation....
in the fusion secondary stage tamper. It is not known if that upgrade was completely tested or merely designed and ready to implement.

The exact dimensions of the W87 are classified, but it fits inside the Mk. 21 reentry vehicle, which is a cone with base diameter of 22 inches (55 cm) and a length of 69 inches (175 cm). The weight is believed to be between 440 and 600 pounds (200 and 270 kilograms).

Variants

In addition to the higher yield upgrade option described above, a specific variant W87-1 entered Phase 3 development engineering and was assigned its type designation in November 1988. This variant was intended for the MGM-134 Midgetman

MGM-134 Midgetman

The MGM-134A Midgetman, formally designated as the Small Intercontinental Ballistic Missile , was an intercontinental ballistic missile developed by the United States of America....
small ICBM missile and was intended to have the full 475 kiloton yield. The Midgetman and W87-1 were cancelled in January 1992.

W87

Description

Variants

See also

External links