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by ghaff 673 days ago
At least modern ICBMs do a star sight to calibrate at the top of their trajectory but, yes, that’s what inertial guidance is. Draper Labs basically pioneered.
1 comments

It's far from the top of their trajectory (by then the warheads are long separated), and only submarine-launched missiles need it.
Ah. I'm only somewhat familiar with Trident.
Ground-based launch sites can supply both position and orientation very accurately (few seconds of angle), more accurately than stellar correction can, and their gyro platform can keep it within a few seconds of angle as well.

Submarines can determine their position accurately enough, but their orientation data can be improved upon using stars.

The MIRV bus takes in the angular fix just before it starts giving the warheads their individual nudges.

You obviously know more than I do. I just have some second-hand non-classified info related to submarine-launched.