Twenty-five years after their top-secret, Cold War-era missions ended, two clandestine American satellite programs were declassified Saturday, with the agency unveiling three of the United States' most closely guarded assets: the KH-7 GAMBIT, the KH-8 GAMBIT 3 and the KH-9 HEXAGON spy satellites.
The vintage National Reconnaissance Office� satellites were displayed to the public Saturday in a one-day-only exhibit here at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport, Va. The three spacecraft are the centerpiece of the NRO's invitation-only 50th Anniversary Gala celebration held at the center later that evening.
Saturday's spysat unveiling was attended by a number of jubilant NRO veterans who developed and refined the classified spacecraft and their components for decades in secret, finally able to show their wives and families what they actually did 'at the office' for so many years. Both of the newly declassified satellite systems, GAMBIT and HEXAGON, followed the U.S. military's frontrunner spy satellite system CORONA, which was declassified in 1995.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder