SAN DIEGO — Gazing out toward the Pacific's horizon, David Ellingson watched on Feb. 12 as a missile suddenly popped like a cork above the waterline. Before it could fall, its rockets fired, propelling it upward.

In a matter of minutes, the missile disappeared into the atmosphere, with only a trail of smoke in its wake.

It's the third time Ellingson, a retired engineer who worked in the country's ballistic missile programs over a 42-year career, has watched a test of one of the world's most powerful weapons launch from a submarine hidden below the waves.

"It's always an incredible sight," said Ellingson, who is president of the Bremerton-Olympic Peninsula Council of the Navy League. "It couldn't have gone better."

The submarine responsible for launching the unarmed test missile, the USS Maine, recently completed a $371 million overhaul at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Testing the weaponry is its culmination of a modernization that extends the boat's life 20 years.

The Maine is among 14 submarines whose mission is to provide a stealthy nuclear strike when the nation's leaders demand it. Its punishing payload can contain warheads with the explosive energy of 100 and 475 kilotons. By comparison, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II had the energy of 15 kilotons.

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'Execute our enduring mission'

Over a little more than three decades, the Maine and its Ohio-class sisters have launched tests of the missile known as the Trident II 178 times.

And it fired not just one missile this month off the coast of San Diego, but two. Following the launch on Feb. 12, a second took place Feb. 16. The missiles, which achieve a height five times higher than the International Space Station, are believed to have touched down thousands of miles away near Wake Island, according to Hans M. Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington D.C.-based think tank.

The nation's ballistic missile-carrying submarines are known as the sea leg of the country's "strategic nuclear deterrent triad," to also include the Air Force's land-fired missiles and nuclear-capable bombers. But the sea leg is known as the most survivable because submarines are hidden under the waves. About 70% of the nation's deployed nuclear weapons lie with subs — and Bangor is home to the country's largest stockpile.

"I couldn’t be more proud of the way they executed both of the test launches," said Rear Adm. Doug Perry, commander of the submarine group that includes the Maine. "And I’m excited to get USS Maine back to executing our enduring mission, providing the nation with the most reliable and survivable strategic deterrent the world has ever known."