Declassified US Spy Satellites: Secret Cold War Space Program

The massive KH-9 Hexagon spy satellite on display at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center, after being declassified on Sept. 17, 2011. 

Longer than a school bus at 60 feet in length and weighing 30,000 pounds at launch, 20 KH-9 Hexagons were launched by the National Reconnaissance Office between 1971 and 1986.

CREDIT: Roger Guillemette/SPACE.com

Twenty-five years after their top-secret, Cold War-era missions ended, two clandestine American satellite programs were declassified Saturday (Sept. 17) with the unveiling of 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 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport, Va.

The three spacecraft were the centerpiece of the NRO's invitation-only, 50th Anniversary Gala celebration held at the center last evening.

VISTA Captures Celestial Cat’s Hidden Secrets

Cat's Paw Nebula Click for More Pictures

ESO image taken with the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, the glowing gas and dust clouds obscuring the view are penetrated by infrared light and some of the Cat’s hidden young stars are revealed.

Towards the heart of the Milky Way, 5500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius (the Scorpion), the Cat’s Paw Nebula stretches across 50 light-years. In visible light, gas and dust are illuminated by hot young stars, creating strange reddish shapes that give the object its nickname.

A recent image by ESO’s Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the La Silla Observatory (eso1003) captured this visible light view in great detail. NGC 6334 is one of the most active nurseries of massive stars in our galaxy.

VISTA, the latest addition to ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Chilean Atacama Desert, is the world’s largest survey telescope (eso0949). It works at infrared wavelengths, seeing right through much of the dust that is such a beautiful but distracting aspect of the nebula, and revealing objects hidden from the sight of visible light telescopes. Visible light tends to be scattered and absorbed by interstellar dust, but the dust is nearly transparent to infrared light.