The United States Air Force opened its first completed construction project for the LGM-35 Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program in March 2026. The facility at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming will act as a “nerve center” for construction and activation work on the next generation ICBM that will replace the 400 Minuteman III missiles the service houses in silos across the Western U.S.
“Everything that occurs, both on base and in Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado in the missile field of the 90th Missile Wing [based at F.E. Warren] will be because of this building right here,” U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Colin Connor said at a ribbon-cutting for the facility, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle newspaper.
U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) activated Site Activation Task Force (SATAF) detachments to manage the massive Sentinel modernization project at four sites in 2025: Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana; Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota; and F.E. Warren. The Wyoming base will be the first to transition to the Sentinel, according to a September 2025 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The base’s SATAF headquarters is one of several Sentinel facilities that the U.S. Air Force is building at F.E. Warren, which will include a missile-handling complex, integrated training center and a maintenance depot, according to AFGSC.
“I think everyone has to understand the true significance of this is that … as the Sentinel program evolves, all the lessons learned of how we’re going to do this more efficiently (will get shared with) Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, as their SATAF operations ramp up,” U.S. Air Force Capt. Stephen Collier said, according to the Cowboy State Daily newspaper.
The Sentinel represents a comprehensive modernization of the land-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, replacing the legacy Minuteman infrastructure. The U.S. Air Force also recently broke ground on a full-scale launch silo prototype in Utah. The Sentinel program is now “rapidly moving from digital design to tangible reality,” said the U.S. Air Force News Service (AFNS). The silo prototype is designed to validate a modular construction model to accelerate fielding of the missiles, according to the AFNS. The Sentinel program plans to field 400 missiles and modernize 450 launch facilities and more than 600 support facilities across the U.S., according to the GAO. The U.S. Air Force plans a Sentinel test launch for 2027 and expects the Northrop Grumman developed ICBM to become operational in the early 2030s.
“Sentinel is foundational to our no-fail mission, and this work helps deliver a weapons system that is more safe, more secure and more effective on day one,” U.S. Air Force Gen. S.L. Davis, the AFGSC commander, said in a news release. “This modernization effort will provide uninterrupted deterrence and ensure the readiness of the ICBM force for decades to come.”