Air Force and Northrop Grumman officials are in town this week hosting town halls to provide updates on the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile project.

The last town hall is May 15 at 6 p.m. at West Elementary School.

Questions for the town halls can be submitted here. Questions about the Sentinel program can also be emailed to AFGSC.Sentinel.Hotline@us.af.mil or by calling the Sentinel hotline at Malmstrom Air Force Base at 406-731-2427.

Air Force hosting town halls on Sentinel missile project

Sentinel is being developed to replace the existing Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile system in use at all three missile bases, including Malmstrom.

This week, The Electric sat down with:

• Maj. Gen. Colin Connor, director of intercontinental ballistic missile modernization, Site Activation Task Force at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana
• Brig. Gen. William Rogers, Air Force program executive officer for intercontinental ballistic missiles and director of the ICBM Systems Directorate at the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Hill Air Force Base in Utah
• Katie Parks, ICBM program executive office deputy at Hill Air Force Base
• Lt. Col. John Mayer, commander of Site Activation Task Force Detachment 11 at Malmstrom Air Force Base
• Ben Davies, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman defense systems sector

The Sentinel program is being restructured following last summer’s Nunn-McCurdy certification process, which was prompted by significant cost overruns.

In January 2024, the Air Force notified Congress that the Sentinel program exceeded its baseline cost projections, causing a critical breach under the federal Nunn-McCurdy Act, which occurs if the program or average unit procurement cost increases by 25 percent or more over the baseline.

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The total program acquisition cost for a “reasonably modified Sentinel program” are now estimated at $140.9 billion, an increase of 81 percent compared to the program’s Milestone B decision in September 2020 when the Air Force awarded a $13.3 billion GBSD engineering and manufacturing development contract to Northrop Grumman.

The Sentinel program cost increase isn’t included included in an April report by the Congressional Budget Office indicating the costs to operate and modernize the U.S. nuclear force through 2034 are projected to rise to $946 billion, 25 percent higher than a 2023 estimate, Reuters reported in April.

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The Sentinel program hasn’t been halted, but “the Air Force has suspended work on specific parts of the project while the program office determines the best way forward,” which includes restructuring the program and assessing the acquisition strategy from a technical and contractual standpoint, Capt. Kaylee Schanda, a public affairs officer for the Secretary of the Air Force, told The Electric in March.

Connor and Rogers told The Electric that the program is progressing and an updated acquisition strategy is expected late this summer or early fall.

Rogers said that through the Nunn-McCurdy process, the Air Force looked at alternatives or reasonable modifications to launch facilities/silos, system engineering processes and managing risks.

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Through that process, in his office at the ICBM Systems Directorate at the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, there’s been adjustments to the organization structure, bringing in more senior leadership and experience. 

“We continue to make progress and move the program forward,” Rogers said, but there were some pauses within the infrastructure design process.

While the Air Force wants to field Sentinel as quickly as possible, Rogers said, they’re taking time in the planning stage to ensure greater confidence in the project timeline going forward.

“It will take a little time to get this right,” he said.

Rogers said that the Air Force has decided not to use the existing silos and instead pursue new silos based on the cost, structural benefits and unknowns of the existing silos.

There are currently 450 silos across Malmstrom, F.E. Warren in Wyoming and Minot in North Dakota.

Of those, up to 400 have a deployed missile at any given time and the other 50 are in “warm status” a change made a decade ago to meet requirements in an arms reduction treaty with Russia. That treaty, New START, is set to expire in 2026.

The asbestos, lead paint and other conditions of the existing silos present challenges to rehabilitating them for use with the new missile system, Rogers said.

The existing silos are in an acceptable state now, but if the Air Force is going to use them for decades to come, they’d need more updates so it “just makes sense to go with new silos” Rogers said.

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To the maximum extent possible, Rogers said they intend to use property owned by the Air Force and Defense Department for those new silos.

There’s about an acre of land per existing Minuteman launch facility site, so if it’s possible, they’ll reuse those sites, but it may be smart to move to other parcels to offset risk.

Rogers said they’re considering using the former 564th Missile Squadron sites, which were deactivated as part of the New START Treaty and the last of which were demolished in 2014.

The 564th complex is northwest of Great Falls in Choteau, Pondera, Teton and Toole counties.

All options are being considered in the analysis, Rogers said, to come up with the most efficient way to implement the Sentinel system.

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Connor said that from an operational standpoint, if the Air Force were to keep the existing silos, they’d end up being about 120 years old from the Minuteman fielding in the 1960s through the projected lifespan of Sentinel.

It’s “time to build something new,” Connor said.

The Minuteman had a 10-year design lifespan, Connor said, which has been stretched for many more decades.

The ongoing missileer cancer study being conducted by Air Force Global Strike Command was also a consideration in the decision to build new silos rather than repurposing the existing silos, Connor and Rogers said.

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Though the Air Force is still working through its acquisition strategy, Rogers said they’re considering the overall implementation plan and that it’s in their interest to have as few people as possible brought into the missile fields in phases.

He said the Air Force is sensitive to the concerns and needs of the local missile base communities.

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The first priority is to use local labor pools, Rogers said, and they’ll supplement that as needed.

Connor said that the Air Force has a vested interest in leaving the ICBM communities better than before Sentinel and that the Air Force isn’t abandoning the community after Sentinel.

The missile communities will have Sentinel, operated and maintained by the Air Force, for the next half century, just as they’ve had Minuteman since the 1960s, he said.

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Concerns of the missile communities going into the Sentinel project are shared by the airmen and Air Force civilians who live in those communities who don’t want to see any detrimental impacts to road or crime or the general community wellbeing, the officials said.

Connor said Sentinel is a program the DoD has never done before.

When Minuteman was installed in the 1960s, the Air Force had a clean slate with no commitment to maintain a weapon system while fielding a new one.

Now, the Air Force has to continue operating Minuteman and not disrupt that system while converting to the Sentinel system.

They’re learning lessons from the current conversion from the Huey to Grey Wolf helicopters at the missile bases.

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An understanding of the breadth and scope of the program requirements as well as the need to engage with industry are some of the takeaways from the helicopter conversion as they’ve had some rough times with Grey Wolf, Rogers said.

That was a fixed price contract and the Air Force realized how it operated needed more engagement with industry, which is Boeing, in that acquisition and conversion, Rogers said, a lesson they’re applying to Sentinel and partnership with Northrop Grumman.

Davies, who heads Northrop Grumman’s defense systems sector, said Sentinel’s missile system design has continued.

“I’m really encouraged by the progress we’re making,” he said, as they’ve tested all four stages of the propulsion system and delivered some of the first transport vehicles to support training on the new system.

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Northrop Grumman is working with the Air Force to make “smart modifications” to the program in an effort to reduce costs, but technical progress is being made on the weapon design.

The U.S. hasn’t developed an ICBM in decades, but the core skills to build those components exists across the company and industry, Davies said.

“We feel like we’re in a good spot,” in terms of workforce to execute the Sentinel project, he said, and Northrop Grumman has emphasized recruitment.

Fielding Sentinel will be unique, Davies said, as a “fine dance” between maintaining Minuteman and transitioning into Sentinel.

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A fundamental focus of the Sentinel is cyber security and ensuring the system is secure for the next 50 years, Davies said.

How Minuteman was deployed, how it’s maintained and operated today is informing the Northrop Grumman team of what’s working well and where the pressure points are, Davies said.

That helps understand what’s driving costs to find solutions for maintaining and operating Sentinel into the future.

There will be no floppy disks involved in Sentinel, Davies said, but it represents a lesson learned that technology on the Minutemen system was in operation well passed its prime.

Minuteman wasn’t envisioned to last more than 10 years and wasn’t designed with the modularity to update the system over time, Davies said, so Northrop Grumman is developing Sentinel to be able to take advantage of technology upgrades through its lifespan.

“The floppy disk is no longer,” Connor said of the oft referenced relic of the ICBM system that the Air Force removed from the system in 2019.

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Parks said the Air Force is applying modern cyber security requirements to the Sentinel system and Rogers said cyber security is a fundamental aspect of developing the new system.

Connor said that those working in the Sentinel program have gone back to look at how the Air Force fielded earlier missile systems, fighter jets and other large weapons systems, looking at old documents to avoid repeating mistakes.

They’re “learning from history, old and recent history,” everything they can gather, plus how other service branches and the civilian sector implemented large programs, Connor said. The human element is in considering how best to apply those lessons.

Sentinel will be implemented in what Rogers and Connor call parallel deployment and work is underway at all three ICBM bases at different levels.

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Connor said the installation sequence order was easier to grasp for some, but in reality, the system installation will be simultaneous but staggered at all three bases.

Mayer, commander of Malmstrom’s Sentinel site activation task force, said a new gate will be installed this summer to handle Sentinel related traffic.

Connor said the base infrastructure work has to be completed to allow anything to happen in the missile field.

Facilities to maintain the system, store equipment, parts and materials, and training facilities will be critical to field installation.

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It’s a “choreographed and orchestrated process,” Connor said for implementation of the new land-based leg of the nuclear triad that multiple U.S. administrations of both political parties have deemed necessary to national defense.

Environmental assessments will be conducted in the Malmstrom missile field this year and Connor said they will be coordinated and announced, but may look different that what the public is used to seeing.

Mayer said the Air Force has good relationships with landowners and people have gotten accustomed to the rhythm of activity in the missile fields and call if something seems amiss.

Things will look a little different during the Sentinel project, but Mayer said the public can and should call local law enforcement or the base to report anything that seems off or suspicious.

There’s a lot of attention on Sentinel, he said, to which Parks added not all of it is American interest.

They’ve dubbed it the Eagle Eyes program, which is an Air Force wide anti-terrorism initiative.

Reportable incidents include:

• surveillance of AF resources
• elicitation of Sentinel project information
• photography of sites, personnel, assets
• unmanned aircraft systems activity
• trespassing near Sentinel sites
• online violence/adverse action related to Sentinel
• foreign national activity near sites

To report any of those incidents, call the base operations center at 406-731-6066 or the Malmstrom Office of Special Investigations at 406-731-3558.