The 68th Strategic Missile Squadron (SMS) was located just north of the Black Hills

Black Hills

The Black Hills are a small, isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, USA. Set off from the main body of the Rocky Mountains, the region is something of a geological anomaly—accurately described as an "island of...

, South Dakota. It was part of the 44th Missile Wing

44th Missile Wing

The 44th Missile Wing is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with Twentieth Air Force, being assigned to Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota. It was deactivated on 4 July 1994....

, located at Ellsworth Air Force Base

Ellsworth Air Force Base

Ellsworth Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located approximately northeast of Rapid City, South Dakota just north of Box Elder, South Dakota....

, just outside Rapid City, South Dakota

Rapid City, South Dakota

Rapid City is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of South Dakota, and the county seat of Pennington County. Named after Rapid Creek on which the city is established, it is set against the eastern slope of the Black Hills mountain range. The population was 67,956 as of the 2010 Census. Rapid...

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Organization

The squadron was responsible for 50 missile silos, also called Launch Facilities (LF), broken down into groups of 10. Each ten missile silos had a control center, or Launch Control Facility (LCF), where two missile officers were on duty 24 hours a day. These LCFs were named after the phonetic alphabet, starting with Kilo. Lima, Mike, November, and Oscar were the other LCFs. The LCFs were designated as "one", hence Kilo 1 was the LCF, and Kilo 2 through 11 represented the actual missile silos controlled from Kilo 1.
In addition to being a normal LCF, Kilo 1 was also the Alternate Command Post, or ACP. All of the other missile sites within the 44th Missile Wing (including the 66th and 67th SMS) reported to Kilo 1.

History

During March 1965 this SMS was responsible for the missile that was launched from a November Flight LF, 10 miles north of Newell, South Dakota

Newell, South Dakota

Newell is a city in Butte County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 603 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Newell is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land....

. The program was called "Project Longlife" and was the only successful launch of a LGM-30 Minuteman

LGM-30 Minuteman

The LGM-30 Minuteman is a U.S. nuclear missile, a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile . As of 2010, the version LGM-30G Minuteman-III is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States...

 missile from an operational site. The "Project Longlife" purpose was to test the launch capabilities from an operational site and to see how much damage the missile caused to the launch silo. The missile contained only enough fuel to burn for 7 seconds with a total flight time of 43 seconds. Many Minuteman missiles have been launched successfully from Vandenberg Air Force Base

Vandenberg Air Force Base

Vandenberg Air Force Base is a United States Air Force Base, located approximately northwest of Lompoc, California. It is under the jurisdiction of the 30th Space Wing, Air Force Space Command ....

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