An unarmed Minuteman 3 missile blasted off early today for a routine mission deemed successful and giving members of a unit some bragging rights.

The intercontinental ballistic missile launched at 1:01 a.m., rumbling its way out of an underground silo on north Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The Air Force tracked the weapon's three dummy warheads as they traveled some 4,200 miles to predetermined targets in the Kwajalein Missile Range.

For the first time, the 576th Flight Test Squadron performed all pre-launch maintenance activities to ready the weapon for blastoff, including placing the Minuteman into its silo.

Typically, a missile wing from Montana, North Dakota or Wyoming sends a task force of about two dozen members to Vandenberg to process a weapon for launch. But citing a heavy workload at home, the Minot Air Force Base, N.D., unit asked Vandenberg's 576th to handle the duties. Minot still sent six missile combat crew members, who served on alert to monitor the missile and turned the keys to conduct the launch.

Vandenberg sees several unarmed missile tests annually as the Air Force collects data about the systems' accuracy and reliability.

The Air Force has 500 Minuteman 3 weapons on alert.

Staff writer Janene Scully can be reached by e-mail at janscully@pulitzer.net