Editing SPOILER: Hopewell Facility (section)

=== Senior Trend / U-2 program ===
Groom Lake was used for bombing and artillery practice during [[World War II]], but was then abandoned until [[1955]], when it was selected by [[Lockheed]]'s [[skunkworks]] team as the ideal location to test the forthcoming [[Lockheed U-2|U-2]] spy plane. The lakebed made for an ideal strip to operate the troublesome test aircraft from, and the Emigrant Valley's mountain ranges and the NTS perimeter protected the secret plane from curious eyes.

Lockheed constructed a makeshift base at Groom, little more than a few shelters and workshops and a small constellation of trailer homes in which to billet its small team.  The first U-2 flew at Groom in August [[1955]], and U-2s under the control of the [[CIA]] began overflights of [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] territory by mid-[[1956]].

During this period, the NTS continued to perform a series of atmospheric nuclear explosions.  U-2 operations throughout [[1957]] were frequently disrupted by the [[Operation Plumbbob|Plumbbob]] series of atomic tests, which exploded over two dozen devices at the NTS.  The Plumbbob-Hood explosion on [[July 5]] scattered [[Nuclear fallout|fallout]] across Groom and forced its (temporary) evacuation.

As the U-2's primary mission was to overfly the Soviet Union, it operated largely from airbases near the Soviet border, including [[Incirlik Air Base|Incirlik]] in [[Turkey]] and [[Peshawar]] in [[Pakistan]].