In support of an official event 

The Museum will be closed Sunday, May 25
In addition, the Fourth Hangar will be closed Saturday, May 24

Access to the Presidential Gallery will be limited from May 15 to June 5
 

Fact Sheet Alphabetical List

Fact Sheet Search

  • Boeing Inertial Upper Stage Space Payload Booster

    The IUS and the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite are stacked together in the 4th BLDG Space Gallery.The Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) is an unpiloted upper-stage booster rocket used from 1982-2004. After launch on an unmanned rocket or inside a space shuttle, the IUS boosted its payload into a

  • The U.S. Air Force in Space

    Since the beginning of the space age after World War II, the U.S. Air Force has provided technical expertise and leadership in developing and using space technology to preserve national security.The USAF has been a leader in missiles, astronautics and orbital technology. It has developed, launched

  • Project Man High Gondola

    Project Man High was a series of three U.S. Air Force balloon flights to the edge of space in 1957-1958. The flights reached the stratosphere at around 100,000 feet to study the effects of high altitudes on humans. This gondola helped researchers gather important aeromedical data, and its flights

  • Reaction Motors XLR99 Rocket

    The XLR99 powered the record-breaking X-15 on its fastest flights at nearly seven times the speed of sound. It was the first large, throttleable, restartable liquid propellant rocket engine to be used in a piloted vehicle. The engine was used only in the X-15 program, which rocketed humans to the

  • Reaction Motors XLR11 Rocket

    The XLR11 was the first liquid-fuel rocket engine developed in the United States for use on airplanes, and it had a long career powering important research aircraft. An XLR11 engine powered the first airplane to break the speed of sound, the Bell X-1, in 1947, and also powered other X-1 models.

  • Aerojet-General LR87 Liquid Rocket

    The LR87 is a liquid-fueled rocket engine first used on Titan Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). LR87 variants also powered the first stages of Titan space boosters in the Gemini manned spaceflight program and various Titan space launch vehicles. Though this powerful engine is in reality

  • Rocketdyne LR79

    The LR79 rocket engine was a reliable workhorse for U.S. Air Force space and missile launches between 1958 and 1980. Variants of this liquid-fueled engine powered Jupiter and Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs), Juno II satellite boosters, and Saturn I and IB rockets used in the

  • Teal Ruby

    Experimental Early Warning SensorThis satellite, known as spacecraft P80-1, carried an experimental infrared telescope code named “Teal Ruby.” Designed to detect heat, Teal Ruby was meant to give early warning of enemy aircraft crossing the polar region toward the United States during the Cold

  • HEXAGON KH-9 Reconnaissance Satellite

    HEXAGON KH-9 reconnaissance satellites were the largest and last U.S. intelligence satellites to return photographic film to earth. During the Cold War, 19 HEXAGON missions imaged 877 million square miles of the Earth’s surface between 1971-1986.HEXAGON’s main purpose was wide-area search. Analysts

  • HEXAGON KH-9 Film Recovery Vehicle

    HEXAGON KH-9 reconnaissance satellites featured four recovery vehicles or “buckets” that dropped back to earth from orbit carrying exposed reconnaissance camera film for processing. A mapping camera attached for some missions at the front of the satellite added a fifth, smaller bucket. U.S. Air