page_title: Titan Missile Museum
section_title: Yield and warhead
hierarchical_section_title: Titan Missile Museum / Yield and warhead
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Titan Missile II re-entry module (used to house the 9 megaton nuclear bomb) on display at the Titan Missile Museum.
context_page_description: The Titan Missile Museum, also known as Air Force Facility Missile Site 8 or as Titan II ICBM Site 571-7, is a former ICBM missile site located at 1580 West Duval Mine Road, Sahuarita, Arizona in the United States. It is located about 40 km south of Tucson on I-19. It is now a museum run by the nonprofit Arizona Aerospace Foundation and includes an inert Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile in the silo, as well as the original launch facilities.
  It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1994. It is the only surviving Titan II complex to survive from the late Cold War period.
context_section_description: The Titan II was the largest operational land based nuclear missile ever used by the United States.  The missile had one W53 warhead with a yield of 9 Megatons (9,000 kilotons).
  The facility's highest state of alert was November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was shot. When news of the shooting broke, the keys used to launch the missile were ordered to be placed on the tables at the launch consoles to prepare for a possible launch. The Pentagon did not yet know whether the Soviet Union had committed an act of war.  The keys were not, however, placed in their switches.
  At launch, orders from the National Command Authority would have specified one of three pre-programmed targets which, for security reasons, were unknown to the crew.   The missile base that is now the Titan Missile Museum (complex 571-7 of the 390th Strategic Missile Wing) was, at the time of closure, programmed to strike "Target Two".  The missile's computer could hold up to three targets, and the target selected was determined by Strategic Air Command headquarters. To change the selected target, the crew commander pressed the appropriate button on the launch console.  Target 2, which is classified to this day but was assumed to be within the borders of the former Soviet Union, was designated as a ground burst, suggesting that the target was a hardened facility such as a Soviet missile base. Targets could be selected for air or ground burst, but the selection was determined by Strategic Air Command.
caption: View of Titan Missile II re-entry vehicle (which housed the 9 megaton warhead)
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