Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician said the break occurred early Saturday at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and lasted less than one hour. The White House was briefed about the failure Tuesday morning.
Despite the interruption, Air Force officials told NBC News the missiles were never totally "out of the control" of launch crews, and there was no evidence of foul play.
The Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles are part of the 319th Missile Squadron stockpiled at the base, where 150 ICBMs are located. The failure affected 50 of them, or one-ninth of the U.S. arsenal.
The equipment failure disrupted "communication between the control center and the missiles, but during that time they were still able to monitor the security of the affected missiles," Vician told the Associated Press. "The missiles were always protected. We have multiple redundancies and security features, and control features."
The launch control center computers communicate through an underground cable, but Vician could not confirm the cable was the source of the problem. Despite the security stopgap measures, military officials acknowledged to NBC that any break in the control system is considered "serious," and said the Air Force was expected to release a comprehensive report on the issue later Wednesday.
Vician said base personnel inspected all 50 missile sites and found no evidence of damage.
Glitch disrupts Air Force nuclear communications An equipment failure disrupted communication between 50 nuclear missiles and a launch control center over the weekend, although the Air Force never lost the ability to launch the missiles. Full story Year-round school gains ground around U.S. Updated 22 minutes ago 10/27/2010 4:52:15 PM +00:00 Twister alerts in South, mid-Atlantic issued When vital drugs run out, patients pay the price Updated 106 minutes ago 10/27/2010 3:28:49 PM +00:00 Backyard treehouse survives Manhattan legal fightOne military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the incident publicly, said the equipment in the launch control center has been the subject of unspecified communications problems in the past.
The White House referred questions to the Pentagon.
The failure was first reported by The Atlantic on the magazine's website. An administration official told The Atlantic that "to make too much out of this would be to sensationalize it. It's not that big of a deal."
The engineering failure put various security protocols — such as intrusion alarms and warhead separation alarms — offline, but the missiles were still technically launchable by airborne command, people briefed on the matter said, according to the Atlantic.
Latest embarrassment for the Air Force
The communications failure is the latest in a series of nuclear mishaps that have plagued the Air Force in recent years.
In August 2007, an Air Force B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La. At the time, the pilot and crew were unaware they had nuclear arms aboard.
Then, in March 2008, the Pentagon disclosed the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads and launched a broad investigation into the military's handling of nuclear related materials.
An internal report asserted that slippage in the Air Force's nuclear standards was a problem that has been identified but not effectively addressed for more than a decade. Those findings led to Defense Secretary Robert Gates' decision to fire Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff.
NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski contributed to this report.
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