Illeginni ( Marshallese: , ) is an

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in the Kwajalein Atoll, part of the

Republic of the Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Intern ...

(RMI). Illeginni is located approximately directly south of Roi-Namur Island, the northernmost part in the atoll, and to the northwest of Kwajalein, the largest island and southernmost part of the atoll. The island runs roughly west-northwest to east-southeast. It is approximately long and averages about across. The northwestern end is a narrow finger that extends into several sandbars, while the southeastern end has a hook-shaped harbor on the north side. Illeginni was the site of a

Sprint missile The Sprint was a two-stage, Solid-propellant rocket, solid-fuel anti-ballistic missile (ABM), armed with a W66 neutron bomb, enhanced-radiation thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warhead used by the United States Army from 1975-1976. It was desig ...

launcher during the 1960s, part of the

Nike-X Nike-X was an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system designed in the 1960s by the United States Army to protect major cities in the United States from attacks by the Soviet Union's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fleet during the Cold War ...

anti-ballistic missile program. Sprint was a very short range system, and relied on a number of bases being spread around the area to be defended, one of these containing the control systems and master radar. Meck Island was the main base in the test system, while Illeginni was a model of the distributed launch sites. As Nike-X was modified to become

Safeguard A safeguard, in international law, is a restraint on international trade or economic development to protect communities from development aggression or home industries from foreign competition. In the World Trade Organization (WTO), a member may ...

, Illeginni's site was changed (before construction) to hold four Sprint and four

LIM-49 Spartan The LIM-49 Spartan was a United States Army anti-ballistic missile, designed to intercept attacking nuclear warheads from Intercontinental ballistic missiles at long range and while still outside the atmosphere. For actual deployment, a five-me ...

launchers. The launcher was abandoned after the Safeguard test program ended in the early 1970s. A number of automated tracking cameras were installed as part of the Safeguard program, and one of these remains in use today to support overall operations of the

Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site The Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, commonly referred to as the Reagan Test Site (formerly Kwajalein Missile Range), is a missile test range in Marshall Islands (Pacific Ocean). It covers about and includes rocket launch s ...

. The island also includes one of the two remote receivers for the TRADEX radar on Roi-Namur, the other remote is on Gellinam, close to Meck. When used together, the three radars are known as the Multistatic Measurement System, or MMS. A harbor has been dredged in the northern side of the eastern end of the island, where it is its widest. The coral dredged from the harbor was used to build the berm for the missile silos. A helipad was installed on the eastern end of the island, adjacent to the harbor, but modern photography shows a new helipad on the former missile silos on the western end.

References

* Islands of the Marshall Islands {{Marshalls-geo-stub