The United States has placed an order for five additional jets to expand their fleet of “Doomsday Planes”

The proposal to develop the next generation of the US Air Force’s Nightwatch aircraft, commonly referred to as the “Doomsday plane,” which serves as an airborne command and control center during a nuclear war, is gaining momentum.

Sierra Nevada Corporation secured a $13 billion contract from the Pentagon in April to construct the Air Force’s upcoming Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) fleet.

According to Reuters, the aerospace company has recently acquired five Boeing 747-8s aircraft from Korean Air, which is the largest airline in South Korea. The planes, with a valuation of 918 billion Korean won ($674 million), are anticipated to be transported to the United States by September 2025.

The forthcoming SAOC is being designed as a replacement for the outdated fleet of Boeing E-4B Nightwatch aircraft. These planes function as a mobile command center for the president, secretary of defense, and other important government and military officials in times of emergency, such as a nuclear war.

The US Air Force presently maintains a fleet of four E-4B aircraft, with at least one constantly on standby, operating around the clock, seven days a week. The primary purpose of these aircraft is to offer immediate assistance to the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Flight trackers occasionally detect the presence of aircraft in various regions of the world, often without clear explanations for ordinary individuals.

The hard-to-find E-4B is a modified military version of the Boeing 747-200, a huge jet made for moving cargo between countries that has room for 111 crew members. A command work area, a conference room, a briefing room, an operations team work area, a communications area, and a rest area have all been changed on the main deck.

“The E-4B is protected against the effects of electromagnetic pulse and has an electrical system designed to support advanced electronics and a wide variety of communications equipment,” the US Air Force says on their website.

“Through the airborne operations center, a high-tech satellite communications system lets senior leaders talk to people all over the world.” Shielding against nuclear and thermal effects, noise control, a better technical control center, and a better air conditioning system for cooling electrical parts are some of the other improvements.

It has been used since the 1970s, when the Cold War was still going strong. The US Air Force is making new planes to deal with the new wave of geopolitical unrest in the world because the old ones are getting close to the end of their useful lives.

There aren’t many details about how the new SAOC is being made, which makes it hard to say how it will be different from the current E-4B Nightwatch aircraft. But the US Air Force has said that it will have a lot more digital design than the last models.

Also, it’s not clear when the new system will be used, but most sources say it won’t be until the 2030s.