History:

Among the three first Atlas bases built in the United States (The others being Vandenberg 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 storable fuels along with missile silos that were introduced with the Atlas-F and Titan-I ICBMs.