The control stations for America’s nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles are getting a major upgrade that is long overdue. These stations have a retro 1980s look, with sea foam green computing panels, bad lighting, and chunky control switches, including a critical one that says “launch.”
Those outdated underground capsules are about to be demolished as the missile silos they control are completely overhauled. The reason for this overhaul is the arrival of a new nuclear missile called the Sentinel. This gigantic intercontinental ballistic missile marks the largest shift in the land leg of the Air Force’s nuclear missile mission in 60 years.
While the Sentinel brings exciting changes, there are also questions about whether some of the Cold War-era aspects of the Minuteman missiles it will replace should be changed.
The modernization of the silo-launched missile with complex software and 21st-century connectivity raises concerns about potential vulnerabilities. The Sentinel will need to be well protected from cyberattacks and must be able to cope with frigid winter temperatures in the Western states where the silos are located.
The monumental $96 billion Sentinel overhaul involves 450 silos across five states, their control centers, three nuclear missile bases, and several other testing facilities. The massive scope of this project has raised questions about whether the Air Force can accomplish it all at once.
There is no doubt that an overhaul is needed. The aging silos lose power and their 60-year-old massive mechanical parts often break down. Air Force crews guard them using helicopters that are relics from the Vietnam War. The hope is that the modernization of the Sentinel, along with the accompanying upgrades to trucks, gear, and living quarters, will attract and retain young technology-minded service members who are now tasked with keeping a very old system running.
After years of delay, nuclear modernization is finally becoming a reality. The United States deferred spending on new missiles, bombers, and submarines in order to support post-9/11 wars overseas. Now, everything is getting modernized at once. The Sentinel work is just one part of a larger $750 billion overhaul of U.S. nuclear defenses, which includes new stealth bombers, submarines, and ICBMs in the country’s most extensive nuclear weapons program since the Manhattan Project.
For the Sentinel, silo work could begin as soon as 2025 by lead contractor Northrop Grumman. This marks 80 years after the U.S. last used nuclear weapons in war, when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 people instantly and likely tens of thousands more over time.
Expectations are high for the modern Sentinel to meet threats from rapidly evolving Chinese and Russian missile systems. The Sentinel is expected to remain in service through 2075, so designers are taking an approach that will make it easier to upgrade with new technologies in the coming years. However, this is not without risk.
“Sentinel is a software-intensive program with a compressed schedule,” the Government Accountability Office reported this summer.