Minuteman / Peacekeeper Launch Facility P-05 (Papa-05 LF), Hillsdale Wyoming

P-05 sat only a few miles north of Hillsdale, close enough to be part of the everyday road-and-ranch landscape of southeastern Wyoming, but far enough into the missile field to serve a different geography: one measured in hardened silos, buried cables, launch-control sectors, and nuclear-alert responsibility. It began as a Minuteman launch facility in F.E. Warren's huge dispersed ICBM field, then became one of the 50 former Minuteman silos converted for the LGM-118A Peacekeeper, the weapon that turned old Minuteman infrastructure into the last major land-based ICBM modernization of the Cold War.

P-05 was a Launch Facility / LF in Papa Flight, F.E. Warren Air Force Base missile field. It was associated with P-01 Missile Alert Facility / Launch Control Center and the 400th Strategic Missile Squadron, later the 400th Missile Squadron, under the 90th Strategic Missile Wing / 90th Missile Wing. The site was originally part of F.E. Warren's LGM-30B Minuteman I force, later served in the LGM-30G Minuteman III era, and was then converted for the LGM-118A Peacekeeper.

P-05 is inactive and decommissioned. It is no longer an operational launch facility.

P-05 lay in open agricultural and ranching country north of Hillsdale and northeast of F.E. Warren Air Force Base. The site's relative closeness to Hillsdale makes it one of Papa Flight's more easily described former launch-facility locations, but that proximity should not be mistaken for public accessibility. P-05 was a restricted military site during its operational life, and its current ownership and public-access status were not verified from a site-specific parcel record.

Like the other Papa Flight launch facilities, P-05 was deliberately separated from the crewed P-01 control site and from neighboring silos. That spacing was a core design feature of the Minuteman and Peacekeeper fields. A launch facility had to be isolated enough that a single attack could not easily destroy an entire flight, yet connected enough by buried communications, maintenance routes, security response patterns, and launch-control systems to function as part of a coordinated missile squadron.

As a Minuteman/Peacekeeper launch facility, P-05 would have been normally unmanned. Missile combat crews served at the underground launch-control center associated with P-01, while maintenance, communications, and security teams visited P-05 as needed. The surface site would have included the typical launch-facility features: access road, security fencing, launcher closure, personnel-access features, underground launcher and support equipment, power and communications connections, and hardstand/apron features.

After Peacekeeper deactivation, P-05 became part of the broader New START silo-elimination program. A 2011 Federal Register public-inspection notice stated that New START required the Air Force to dismantle 103 non-operational launch facilities, including 50 Peacekeeper launch facilities of the deactivated 400th Missile Squadron and five associated missile alert facilities at F.E. Warren. The same notice identified possible dismantlement methods including implosion, excavation, and backfill, with complete dismantlement required by 4 February 2018.

For the full Papa Flight narrative, see P-01 Missile Alert Facility / Launch Control Center

Chronology

• 1963-02-21 SAC redesignated the 90th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing as the 90th Strategic Missile Wing.
• 1963-07-01 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing was activated at F.E. Warren Air Force Base with the 319th, 320th, 321st, and 400th Strategic Missile Squadrons.
• 1964 The 400th Strategic Missile Squadron was organized at F.E. Warren; P-05 belonged to the squadron group later converted for Peacekeeper service.
• 1965-06-15 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing placed its 200th Minuteman missile on alert and became the first fully operational Minuteman wing.
• 1972 F.E. Warren began SAC's Force Modernization Program to replace Minuteman IB with Minuteman III.
• 1973 The 400th Strategic Missile Squadron became the first all-Minuteman III squadron in the 90th Strategic Missile Wing.
• 1974-09-03 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing removed its last Minuteman IB from alert status.
• 1982-11 President Ronald Reagan renamed the MX missile Peacekeeper.
• 1984-07 Peacekeeper support-facility construction began at F.E. Warren, according to public site-listing history.
• 1986-10-10 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing had its first strategically postured Peacekeeper site.
• 1986-12-16 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing reached initial operating capability for Peacekeeper.
• 1988 The Air Force had 50 Peacekeeper missiles in service at F.E. Warren; P-05 was one of the former Minuteman launch facilities in the converted 400th Missile Squadron group.
• 2005-09-14 The 90th Space Wing completed deactivation of the last of its Peacekeeper ICBMs, according to the F.E. Warren wing history.
• 2005-09-19 The Peacekeeper mission formally ended at F.E. Warren; a missile combat crew officer at Papa One Launch Control Center confirmed that no Peacekeeper ICBMs remained on strategic alert in the 400th Missile Squadron.
• 2005-10 The 400th Missile Squadron was deactivated after the end of the Peacekeeper mission.
• 2011-02-05 New START entered into force.
• 2011-11-17 The Air Force published notice of intent to prepare an environmental assessment for Minuteman III and Peacekeeper silo elimination/dismantlement, including 50 Peacekeeper launch facilities and five associated missile alert facilities at F.E. Warren.
• 2013-03-22 AFCEC announced the final environmental assessment and draft finding of no significant impact for dismantling deactivated Minuteman III and Peacekeeper launch facilities under New START.
• 2013-08-23 F.E. Warren announced that 50 previously deactivated Peacekeeper launch facilities north of Cheyenne would be permanently eliminated under New START.
• 2014-12 F.E. Warren's 2013 release identified December 2014 as the planned completion point for eliminating the former Peacekeeper launch facilities north of Cheyenne.
• 2018-02-04 New START required complete dismantlement of covered launch facilities by this date.

Read about the Peacekeeper Missile at F.E. Warren AFB

All Peacekeeper Missile Silo Locations

All Minuteman/Peacekeeper Missile Silo Locations