Air Force on a long road to replace Minuteman III.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

The Air Force this fall will select two prime contractors to begin work on an 18-year-long development program to replace the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile--one of the three legs of the nuclear triad.

The length of the ground-based strategic deterrent's developmental timeline was not lost on Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, Strategic Command commander, who had some sharp words for the program at a recent speech in Washington, D.C.

"We have to be able to go fast," he said. The Minuteman I went from an idea sketched out on a napkin in 1957 to its first successful test in 1961 and first deployment in 1962. A three-stage solid rocket had never been built before yet 800 missiles were on alert by 1965, he said.

The program to replace the Minuteman III will take four times as long and the nation will end up with half the capability at 400 missiles, he noted.

"Where did we lose the ability to go fast?" Hyten asked.

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There is plenty of blame to go around for slow program development timelines, he said. Congress, the Defense Department and the acquisition community all have a part to play, he said. "It's an indictment of every one of us."

The Air Force timeline, which doesn't call for full-rate production until 2028, is actually tight, he said. The program will not only produce new ICBMs but also the command-and-control system and missile field infrastructure. Many of the Minuteman Ill's components will be outdated by the end of the 2020s, Hyten said.

Those who have proposed a service-life extension approach haven't seen the numbers, he said. A study found that it would cost more to replace obsolete parts than it would to build a whole new system, Hyten said.

"You will have ended up replacing just about everything on the missile, which will cost you more... but nobody believes me," he said.

Leah Bryant, chief of public affairs and legislative liaison at the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, said the developmental timeline was well thought out.

The ground-based strategic deterrent's "estimated schedule is based on market research, input from subject matter experts, and evaluation of previous, related development efforts," she said in an email.

The current timeline calls for a three-year technology maturation and risk reduction phase beginning after a downselect to two companies, which should take place before the end of the fiscal year. After that is concluded, the Air Force will choose one company for a five-year...