NASA 708 and its sister ship, NASA 709, were obtained from the U.S. Air Force in 1971 to test instrumentation systems being developed for the early Landsat Earth-observing satellites. The results were so successful that the program was extended, and the aircraft became significant Earth-observing platforms in their own right. Because they could gather air samples at altitudes above 95 percent of the Earth's atmosphere, they also became instrumental in studying atmospheric composition, and these data made significant contributions to early ozone studies. The NASA U-2s were the last of the original production run, begun in the 1950s, to remain on flight status. They had been designed during the Cold War to overfly the Soviet Union and gather intelligence, and both could be outfitted for naval carrier operations. Upon retirement in 1987, NASA 709 had set 16 International Time-to-Climb and Cruise Altitude records in two weight classes. The work done by the NASA U-2s in the 1970s and 1980s continues today using ER-2 aircraft, which have a larger wing and higher payload and are deployed around the world to gather data on Earth resources, celestial events, atmospheric dynamics, and oceanographic processes.
