The senior NMCC officer directs preparation of the launch order in the form of an Emergency War Order (EWO) – a message that contains the chosen war plan, time to launch, authentication codes and codes needed to unlock the missiles before firing them. A second officer will validate that order. The order is then broadcast to each worldwide command and directly to launch crews by releasing an Emergency Action Message (EAM) which is an encoded and encrypted message about 150 characters long.