Airmen from Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, conducted the second half of an operational test Tuesday of the Minuteman III missile weapon system.

The simulated electronic launch-Minuteman, or SELM, is a test of all the steps leading up to the first-stage ignition of a missile launch.

This week's test involved two launch control centers and six launch facilities. The LCCs and LFs were configured into a test squadron and cut off from the rest of the missile complex to prevent actual launch of a missile.

It's an infrequent piece of the test, said Lt. Col. Scott Fleming, assistant director of operations at the 490th Missile Squadron.

SELM is conducted every other year and rotates between the three ICBM wings so it's about every six years that it's done at Malmstrom. This week's test was out of sequence as Malmstrom did the test last cycle also, which was in 2013.

But the selected sites in the 490th had never been tested under SELM, Fleming said.

On Tuesday, airmen from the base and local officials traveled about 3½ hours to LF K-09 to watch part of the SELM test.

The test involved blowing the launch enclosure door, which is about 100 tons, to ensure that it would open properly should a missile ever get the order to launch.

Fleming said the Air Force only blows an enclosure door every other year during the SELM test.

Base personnel built a wall 12 feet high using sandbags and filled dirt behind it to prevent the door from blowing completely.

Fleming said the door opens with such force that "we need that much earth to stop it and keep it on the slide rail so they can reset the site afterward."

After the door blew, which took about three seconds, some maintenance airmen yelled, "That was awesome!"

Maintenance airmen have been on site preparing for the SELM test for the past month.

Tech. Sgts. Harrison Roberts and Dustin Flint and Senior Airman Sanderson Conway were part of those maintenance teams.

Watching the test "definitely validates what you do," Roberts said.

Flint said the test required more work than their day to day and even though there's a lot of pressure for team perfection daily, it's heightened during the tests.

For the maintenance airmen, it was also an added bonus to have airmen from other career fields on base watch the test. Many of those watching were security forces and Conway said that helps them understand what they're guarding in the field.

It was also a chance for "the public to know that they're doing their jobs to the highest level every day," Roberts said.

The other component of the SELM test involves Navy aircraft to validate the system that would allow a missile to be launched from the air if a ground launch facility were incapacitated.

Air Force personnel aboard a Navy E-6B Mercury aircraft operate the Air Launch Control System during that portion of the test, Fleming said.

The SELM test is the second half of the operational test used to validate the Minuteman III system.

The first half was conducted in March, when Malmstrom airmen launched an unarmed ICBM from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

During that test, a missile was pulled from a site near Stanford, taken apart and transported to Vandenberg, where Malmstrom airmen reassembled the missile and Malmstrom missile crew members turned the keys to launch the missile.

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