History:

Among the three first Atlas bases built in the United States (The others being Vandenburg in California and F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming), Offutt's three Atlas-D missile complexes were built near Arlington and Mead, Nebraska as well as Missouri Valley in Iowa.

Deployed by March 1961, there were three missiles at each complex housed within above-ground "Coffin" launcher structures. Each complex meanwhile possessed a control center where personnel could launch the missiles and provide radio-guidance information to the missiles in flight.

Missiles required careful propellant and liquid oxygen loading procedures in order to launch. Atlas-D missiles also utilized an early re-entry vehicle that utilized a heat-sink (utilizing copper) to deflect heat upon re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. This carried a 1.44 megaton warhead.

While the Atlas-D paved the way for ICBM development, it was soon rendered obsolete due to advancements in internal guidance, safer and storable fuels along with missile silos that were introduced with the Atlas-F and Titan-I ICBMs.