NEW YORK, June 18. /TASS/. The United States carried out a training launch of a Minotaur I rocket with the Mk21A warhead not equipped with nuclear charge from the Vanderberg US Space Force base.

"An operational test launch of an unarmed Mk21A reentry vehicle was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base aboard a Minotaur I rocket, Monday, June 17, at 11:01 p.m. PT.," it said. "The Mk21A program is currently in early development and overseen by the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center," reads a post on the base’s website.

The Mk21A reentry vehicle will be used in LGM-35 Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles that are expected to replace Minuteman III by 2031.

William A. LaPlante, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, said earlier that the Department of Defense was looking at both dropping the Sentinel program and amending it. He confirmed that the implementation of the Sentinel program was delayed due to problems with contractors. Later, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Brown promised to take all possible measures to complete the Sentinel ICBM program in time.

John F. Plumb, the first Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy said at a meeting with the Defense Writers Group, which TASS is a member of, that his country was not planning to refuse from ground-based ICBMs, despite the problems with the implementation of the project for their modernization.