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Ground Test Articles were placed on display for ONE DAY/NIGHT only at NASM's Udvar Hazy Center, as part of the NRO's 50th anniversary.

This thread will feature links to photographs/information from my visit today.

(Fliers that they were handing out today)

GAMBIT which was on display behind a hidden wall for the banquet tonight for NRO's 50th:

HEXAGON:





































Every so often a declassified documentary film on HEXAGON from back in the day they were showing, would cut away to REDACTED blank screens:

Some statistics from the displays there:

Launches:
92 x GAMBITs from July 1963 - April 1984
20 x HEXAGONs from June 1971 - April 1986

Mission Statistics:

GAMBIT 1: 724 average targets/mission for 27,534 targets total.
GAMBIT 2: 12,978 average targets/mission for 700,812 targets total.

One GAMBIT 3 mission acquired 27,652 frames with 49,372 targets!

The average HEXAGON mission covered 46 million square nautical miles.

The total coverage from all 20 HEXAGONs launched was 877 million square nautical miles and 104 million square nautical miles covered with the mapping cameras.

Awesome hardware. I can only imagine your immense boner.

Driving down 28 last night there was unbeliveable bumper-to-bumper traffic at the ramp to UH. I guess people really wanted to see them.

Lonestar wrote:Driving down 28 last night there was unbeliveable bumper-to-bumper traffic at the ramp to UH. I guess people really wanted to see them.

There was a 4,000 person reception being held at U-H that night for the super special formal unveiling -- they roped off a lot of exhibits to make room for table storage when I was down there.