The National Reconnaissance Office will declassify two imagery satellites that operated from 1963 to 1984 during a ceremony Saturday at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles airport in Chantilly, Va. Both the Gambit, known as KH-7/8, and the Hexagon, designated KH-9, were film-delivery systems. The Hexagon is 60-feet long and 10-feet wide. “It was a remarkable piece of mechanical engineering, the way they put the thousands and thousands of feet of film inside that thing,” said NRO Director Bruce Carlson of Hexagon during a meeting with reporters Thursday in Washington, D.C. “It took more pictures on the first successful flight than they did on all the U-2 flights.” A clear plastic cover will allow museum visitors to view inside Hexagon, the once super secret intelligence satellite.
The rate of building B-21 bombers would speed up if the fiscal 2026 defense budget passes. But it remains unclear how much capacity would be added, and whether the Air Force would simply build the bombers faster, or buy more.
