Loading...

Delta-09 Launch Facility

Delta-09 occupies part of an open, grassy tract of land ten miles west-northwest of LCF Delta-01. The launch structures are concentrated inside a rectangular area surrounded by a chain-link security fence. The area inside the enclosure was specifically planned to provide maneuver space for the truck-like transporter-erector vehicles that hauled and emplaced the Minuteman missiles.

The underground launch tube and equipment room are covered by a massive, reinforced-concrete roof slab, known as the launcher closure. The top of the slab is level with the surface of the maneuver area. The roof slab is roughly teardrop-shaped in plan, with its apex pointing toward the northwest. The reinforced-concrete closure door is three and one-half feet thick and weighs more than ninety tons.

Workers entered the silo through the personnel access hatch in the northeast corner of the roof slab. The access hatch is a heavily reinforced, steel-and-concrete vault door, operated by two hydraulic cylinders. The door opens into a cylindrical shaft that descends to the lower level of the equipment room. Fitted into the shaft is the "B‑plug," a piston-like, steel security door operated by an electro-mechanical actuator. The silo cannot be entered until the B-plug is retracted.

Slight modifications have been made to Delta-09 to prepare it for interpretation as a static display. The launcher closure has been permanently fixated in a partially open position, in agreement with the START Treaty, and a glass and aluminum viewing enclosure was installed over the opening in 2001. A deactivated training missile was installed in the launch tube in 2001. The glass viewing enclosure allows visitors to see into the launcher to view the training missile.