At approximately 10 a.m. on March 22, the latest donation to the New Mexico Museum of Military History was moved from Kirtland Air Force Base to its new home at the site of the preservation and restoration facility here in Rio Rancho.

If you were traveling on Interstate 25 north, you might have seen it: a Soviet block surface to air missile (SA 2) being towed down the highway by two military vehicles.

This missile was introduced to the world in 1959, and in 1960 this type of missile shot down Gary Powers and Major Anderson during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, U2 aircraft pilots. The SA 2 did not operate alone. It was joined with a radar site to aim the missile.

It has an effective range of 19 miles and an altitude of 60,000 feet capable of traveling at over three times the speed of sound. Its 288 pound warhead would explode and create a cloud of fragmented metal to destroy aircraft. At low and medium altitudes, it had a blast of 100 to 120 meters, while its maximum blast radius against a high-altitude target was 250 meters. The SA 2 was used effectively by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War.

This missile is one of the artifacts, which will join 80 other military vehicles dating from World War I to the Vietnam era. The development of the New Mexico Museum of Military History is moving quickly from concept to reality. Construction will begin in late April of this year on a 10,000 square foot building. The New Mexico Armory Board leased eight acres of land for the construction of the museum and visitor’s center.