Out of time: DLA Disposition Services to help retire Minuteman III

In late March, the U.S. Air Force announced that it broke ground in Utah on a launch silo prototype for the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile. The site will provide design and construction validation for an expected 450 modular silos to replace Minuteman III, the mainstay land-based leg of the nation's nuclear triad since 1970.
Sentinel is expected to be operational by the early 2030s, and as new silos come online in the years after, legacy facilities will need demilitarization - a War Department requirement overseen by the Defense Logistics Agency.

In recent years, DLA Disposition Services' Nate Tichenor has served as the agency's senior disposal advisor to the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, or AFNWC, developing potential demilitarization and property disposal plans for the eventual retiring of Minuteman III facilities and specialized equipment.

Initially, thousands of unique, non-cataloged components associated with Minuteman III lacked property book accountability, he said. Many types of highly specialized equipment found only in Minuteman III facilities had not been assigned National Stock Numbers during program development in the 1960s. Over time, Tichenor created Local Stock Numbers to help the Air Force establish positive control over its aging equipment.

After educating Air Force leadership on DOW demilitarization policy and validating a viable disposition framework through on-site visits, DLA Disposition Services delivered three recommendations for potential silo retirement paths for the Air Force to pursue. Tichenor said the Air Force may seek DLA's assistance on securing a demilitarization waiver to bury the silos and all the unclassified Minuteman III equipment in place. If not, they will pursue traditional demilitarization, in which equipment is removed and transported to centralized locations where DLA property disposal specialists oversee and certify its destruction.

Whatever process the service selects, Tichenor said DLA will provide immediate and enduring assistance.

"DLA will have a hand in it, no matter what path they choose," Tichenor said. "We're at the start line. Once they choose a course of action, we're ready to execute and provide oversight for the duration."

The transition, once it begins, will likely take well over a decade, according to Air Force plans shared with DLA. The service wants to be prepared to sustain Minuteman III operations until as late as 2050.

In late April, Tichenor accompanied DLA Director Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly to Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to gain warfighter perspective on sustainment needs from Minuteman III tactical-level operators and maintainers. Simerly visited with personnel and toured underground 90th Missile Wing launch, alert and control centers in the remote prairie, discussing replacement part and transportation challenges personnel must creatively overcome to keep the Minuteman III's half century-old systems humming.

Tichenor identified an additional future DLA task through discussions with on-site engineers and facilities maintainers: each silo stores thousands of gallons of underground fuel for facility backup generators that will need to be purged and potentially sold - two tasks DLA Disposition Services and DLA Energy are already well-positioned to handle.
"Until Sentinel is 100% online, we'll be involved until the end," Tichenor said.

Read more from this June 2026 edition of Loglines or browse more editions of the magazine on the Loglines Magazine website.