HomeTechnologyThe Air Force's new ICBM is nearly ready to fly, but there’s nowhere to put it

The Air Force's new ICBM is nearly ready to fly, but there’s nowhere to put it

TechnologyFebruary 28, 2026
1 min read
The Air Force's new ICBM is nearly ready to fly, but there’s nowhere to put it
"There were assumptions that were made in the strategy that obviously didn’t come to fruition."
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DENVER—The US Air Force's new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile is on track for its first test flight next year, military officials reaffirmed this week.

But no one is ready to say when hundreds of new missile silos, dug from the windswept Great Plains, will be finished, how much they cost, or, for that matter, how many nuclear warheads each Sentinel missile could actually carry.

The LGM-35A Sentinel will replace the Air Force's Minuteman III fleet, in service since 1970, with the first of the new missiles due to become operational in the early 2030s. But it will take longer than that to build and activate the full complement of Sentinel missiles and the 450 hardened underground silos to house them.

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Source: Ars Technica

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