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| MQ-9 Reaper |
Deep in the Nevada desert is a top secret, little-known US military facility known as Area 6, rumored to be the Pentagon's test ground for cutting-edge unmanned aerial vehicles. "I had not heard about it," claimed John Pike, director of a Virginia-based defense news site, according to the Las Vegas Review.
Pike was referring to Area 6, a top secret military base in Yucca Flat. Located roughly a dozen miles southwest of the infamous Area 51, the site was once a testing ground for the US nuclear weapons program. While the base is operated by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), it is used jointly by both the US Defense Department and Homeland Security.
"They come here to test their own sensors," NNSA spokesman Darwin Morgan told the Las Vegas Review.
"We have controlled airspace and that gives them opportunities to test various types of platforms," he added. "We do a wide variety of work for others...supporting people with sensor development activities. It evolved from the nuclear testing program. We had to have very good sensors to collect data in a split second before they were obliterated."
Read the full story at SpaceDaily