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Glitch hits Wyoming ICBM site computers

One-ninth of the U.S. ICBM strike force went offline Saturday, as a series of control errors multiplied beyond the ability of engineers to compensate.

Rupert Goodwins
Rupert started off as a nerdy lad expecting to be an electronics engineer, but having tried it for a while discovered that journalism was more fun. He ended up on PC Magazine in the early '90s, before that evolved into ZDNet UK - and Rupert evolved with them into an online journalist.
Rupert Goodwins

One-ninth of the American ICBM strike force went offline on Saturday, according to a report on the Web site of the U.S. magazine The Atlantic, as a series of control errors multiplied beyond the ability of engineers to compensate.

The squadron of 50 missiles affected is stationed at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, said the report. The weapons are controlled by five launch control center computers (LCCs), which periodically interrogate the on-board guidance systems of the weapons to confirm their status. According to the report, one LCC began to ping the missiles out of sequence, causing the guidance systems to return errors.

Read more of "US loses control of 50 nukes in cascading failure" at ZDNet UK.

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