The Air Force may be forced to keep operating its already half-century-old Minuteman III nuclear missiles until 2050, as the replacement Sentinel program continues to run into delays, government auditors said Wednesday.

The service had previously expected the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile to reach the end of its service in 2036, the Government Accountability Office said in its report, “ICBM Modernization: Air Force Actions Needed to Expeditiously Address Critical Risks to Sentinel Transition.”

But in the four years since that assessment was made, the LGM-35A Sentinel program has run into a series of developmental snags and severe projected cost overruns.

Minuteman III currently makes up the land-based portion of the nation’s nuclear triad, with 400 missiles deploy

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