The first operational Minutemen III Silo has been taken offline to make way for a $141 billion upgrade to Sentinel missiles, a huge milestone for the nation’s nuclear modernization project.
The decommissioned silo is located at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne.
The decommissioning is a key step in the Air Force’s plan to modernize the land-based portion of America’s nuclear arsenal, the so-called nuclear triad that also includes air and sea.
As part of the modernization project, all MIII missiles will be replaced with a modernized missile, the LGM-35A Sentinel, which is being led by prime contractor Northrop Grumman.
The occasion is a significant milestone as the Sentinel era begins, according to an Air Force Global Strike spokesman.
“(This) is the first operational MIII silo to be taken offline as part of the transition to Sentinel, (and is) a significant step forward in the ICBM modernization effort,” the spokesman told Cowboy State Daily in an email Thursday. “During the transition process, there will be no degradation of the land-based leg of the nuclear triad.
"The administrative decertification of LF 5E10 has no impact to the number of ICBMs that can be on alert.”
The military will continue to meet all ICBM alert requirements for U.S. Strategic Command and the president throughout construction of the Sentinel program, the spokesperson added, meaning that 400 missiles will remain perpetually at the ready for launch as the $140.9 billion project proceeds.
The exact timeframe when the MIII silo was taken offline isn’t publicly available, but the decertification process involved removing critical equipment from the launch facility, as well as isolating the site from the overall network and disposing of some “non-critical equipment,” according to the Air Force Global Strike’s statement.
Tucker Fagan, who is a former commander of F.E. Warren Air Force Base, told Cowboy State Daily that it’s likely the missile silo taken offline was one that didn’t contain a missile.
In all, America has 450 missile silos but, as per treaties, there are only 400 missiles active and ready to go at any one time. That means 50 missile silos are empty at any given time.
“There’s no reason why you’d go after an active silo right now and take it down when you’ve a bunch of other ones that, because of treaty reasons, don’t have weapons,” Fagan said. “And probably what they’re doing is working with the contractor, going like, ‘OK, what are the things we’re going to run into here? Let’s actually work with this guy to see what we need to be doing.’”
Time For The Nitty-Gritty Details
Table topping the construction is exactly what’s going on, said Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Dale Steenbergen. He has been sitting in on regular conference calls with Sentinel’s contractors and other military personnel involved.
The aim of the call is to keep affected communities in the loop as the Sentinel work proceeds.
“This is just kind of the next natural step in the evolution of Sentinel,” Steenbergen told Cowboy State Daily. “They have to start getting down to a site, and it’s really hard to do on paper to figure out how you’re going to rebuild a site without actually looking at what you’re dealing with.”
While some decisions about launch silos have already been made, now it’s time to get into nitty-gritty details.
“We still don’t know what some of this looks like,” Steenbergen said. “Thinking construction wise, is it going to be a modular kind of system where we bring it in and slide it in a hole or is it going to be stick built, and how are we going to do that?”
The silo will help inform best practices for the rest of the process and help derisk the construction processes going forward.
“It’s one thing to draw a picture of a house and contemplate building it,” Steenbergen said. “It’s another to go out to the actual site where it’s going to be built and actually realize the challenges that might be in a place where nothing has been done in 75 years.”
Problem Silos
Derisking is a common tactic for the military to take, Fagan said.
“These guys are very risk averse,” he said. “So, they’re going to put a lot of time and effort in to make sure they understand it and that they know what it is.”
Taking a silo down will add to long-term analysis for the overall approach to upgrading other launch facilities, Fagan said.
“Can we use them all? Can we use most of them? Stuff like that,” he said. “All that’s going to be taken into account. And then they’ll have other guys who are working on the missiles, people working on what’s called the ground equipment. This is going to be a very long-term process.”
The effort could also contribute to a better understanding of what’s going on at problem silos.
“Some of the other wings, like up in Grand Forks (North Dakota), have faced a lot of water intrusion at missile sites up there,” Fagan said. “That’s really why that was one of the first ones to go after the treaty, because ... there’s a lot of water intrusion up there.”
Taking the Minuteman III silo down is overall a good sign for the future of the Sentinel program, Fagan said.
The replacement of MIII missiles with the new LGM-35A Sentinel is one of the largest modernization efforts ever undertaken for the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
The program has faced delays and steep cost increases, which has caused some to raise questions about the program’s feasibility.
The 81% cost overrun triggered a congressional review of the budget. Ultimately it was determined that the project should proceed, but nationally, some critics have continued to raise objections.
“These are good signs that (Sentinel) is not moribund,” Fagan said. “Taking one (silo) down, I can see where they’re going. It’s, ‘Hey, we want to get in there and do measurements on absolutely everything.'”
Northrop Grumman Already In Cheyenne
Seeing that the project is not idle is the exciting part to Steenbergen as well.
It’s a huge multibillion-dollar project that Steebergen expects to inject around $90 billion into the Wyoming economy, according to the figures he has seen.
F.E. Warren employs around 3,500 people directly, but that spins out to a total of employment of around 15,000 people, he added.
Employment numbers are expected to grow as work on the Sentinel progresses.
“We haven’t seen those numbers yet of what they expect that to be,” Steenbergen said. “But we know we’re going to have more security forces, because they’re going to have more to do.
"And you have the Site Activation Task Force (SATF), which, if I just take what those kind of end up being in other places, we could expect 300 people just from the folks who are working on the military site to do the project.”
That doesn’t include personnel from Northrop Grumman or other heavy hitters in the missile defense industry who will be involved in the project.
“Northrop does have a facility in Cheyenne,” Steenbergen said. "They built it within the last five years and, since then, we’ve been talking with other companies who are starting to do those same kinds of things.
"They’re either looking for a facility and they’re doing workforce development work in Wyoming. So, there’s a lot going on with this project.”
Other Big Companies Eyeing Cheyenne Facilities
Steenbergen couldn’t identify any of the companies that are talking with Cheyenne officials yet, but said some are heavy hitters.
Steenbergen expects some will ultimately locate either field offices or other facilities in the region as Sentinel construction proceeds.
Those companies won’t be temporary flashes-in-the-pan, either. They are likely to stick around for a long time once Sentinel is up and running, Steenbergen believes.
“If we use the last missile build as a guide for that, those companies were here for many years after the initial kind of construction push happened,” he said. “If we drive down — and maybe it’s gone now — but for years and years you could drive down the interstate in Cheyenne and you could see it in a few other places like Pine Bluffs, where companies like Boeing … still had their name painted on the side of a building.”
Part of the reason for the longevity, Steenbergen said, comes down to working out all the details of a complex process, making sure everything is running 100% according to plan.
“It takes a while to work out all the processes and things that you thought would work a certain way, and communications and security and everything else that they work on,” he said. “And these missiles have constant maintenance, so we do expect this to be a big economic boom for our community, and we’re already starting to see it.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
