This is a slow-motion aerial clip of the launch of Titan II, N-27, on 9 November 1963, Launch Complex 395-C, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.The apogee of this launch was 1,300 km.
Clip 1 Real time launch film surface view
00:17:05 silo closure door open command
00:34:07 silo closure door fully open
00:34:20 first stage ignition
00:35:02 hold down bolts fire
00:38:00 missile emerges from silo
The Titan II was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company from the earlier Titan I missile. Titan II was originally designed and used as an ICBM, but was later adapted as a medium-lift space launch vehicle (these adaptations were designated Titan II GLV and Titan 23G) to carry payloads to Earth orbit for the United States Air Force (USAF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Those payloads included the USAF Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), NOAA weather satellites, and NASA’s Gemini crewed space capsules. The modified Titan II SLVs (Space Launch Vehicles) were launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, up until 2003.
The Titan II Research and Development flight test program consisted of Category I and Category II test operations conducted at the Air Force Eastern Test Range (AFETR), with launches from Cape Kennedy, Florida, and the Air Force Western Test Range (AFWTR) with launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California during the period from March 1962 to April 1964. Category I testing included a total of 30 Lot N Research and Development missile flight tests, twenty-three at the AFETR and seven at the AFWTR.
Lot N: Designated XLGM-25C, the Lot N vehicles were complete two-stage Titan II missiles. In general, except for special instrumentation, the Lot N missiles were equipped like and were representative of the Titan II operational missile.
Missile N-27 was launched from Site C (Launch Complex 395C), on 9 November 1963 and delivered a Mark 6 Mod 2B R/V to an area near the Kwajalein Atoll after a flight time of 1738 seconds The missile configuration included a spacer with six midcourse and two reentry decoys, the operational computer program, and a translation system with the rocket ejection inhibited, as during the Missile N-l 9 flight test. This flight was the first complete confirmation of the IMU modifications, and guidance system performance was satisfactory in every respect. The reentry vehicle executed the proper pitch-depitch and roll maneuvers and impacted in the planned target area. Ejection of one reentry decoy could not be confirmed by telemetry data because of an apparent instrumentation anomaly associated with the decoy ejection velocity measurement and the decoy eject measurement for that tube.
The launch of Missile N-27 was the last in a series of three tests evaluating the design of the acoustical attenuation launch duct liner system.
Twenty-five of the 32 Lot N missiles carried Mark 6 reentry vehicles that were coated with a white ablative material. The operational reentry vehicles do not have this coating.
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