FAS | Intelligence | Agencies | Overhead | Area 51 |||| Index | Search |

Area 51 - Groom Lake, NV
Operations Building 299

02 April 2000 - IKONOS 1-meter Imagery

The 56,000 square foot operations building is the heart of the research, developement, flight testing and evaluation effort at Groom Lake. It is two story building, with dozens of large and small offices consistent with modern building design. Publically available floorplans of the building indicate the presence of both an intelligence and Cryptological vaults. The intelligence vault has been built as an appendiage onto the exterior of the building suggesting that it is a TEMPEST certified Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence Facility or (SCIF). The Crypto vault is located in two of the largest rooms in the building. The size of the two rooms (200-201) suggest an operatons and mission planning room consistant with operational mission planning, execution and recovery. Modified B-52H aircraft did deploy and launch D-21 reconnaissance drones from Groom in the late 1960's, so it is possible that these large rooms were used to support those missions.

Vehicle Count

There are at least 210 vehicles parked outside the operations building.

Credit: spaceimaging.com. Copyright (c) Space Imaging. All RIGHTS RESERVED.
Online and news media distribution or publishing requires permission from Space Imaging.

FAS | Intelligence | Agencies | Overhead | Area 51 |||| Index | Search |