The 6594th Test Group was a United States Air Force Unit stationed in Hawaii at Hickam Air Force Base from 1958 until it was inactivated in 1986.
The 6594th Test Group was established in 1958 to support U.S. Air Force Systems Command missile and space development operations in the Western Pacific area. It also provided support to the U.S. Coast Guard and Honolulu Joint Rescue Coordination Center on an as-available, non-interference basis.
Large portions of the Test Group's mission were classified until 1995 when information concerning Project CORONA was declassified. The 6594th was largely concerned with retrieving film canisters, about the size of a garbage can, in midair that had been ejected from some of the United States' earliest spy satellites.
These canisters were among the first objects sent in to space that were designed to survive re-entry. Upon entering the ionosphere, they could resemble a shooting, or falling, star. Thus, the unit's motto "To Catch a Falling Star".
Because retrieval occurred over water in the Pacific, rescue swimmers were a standard part of the mission crew. Thus, when the 6594th was not busy with their primary mission, they were often available to support the US Coast Guard and other agencies in Search and Rescue (SAR) missions. The 6594th Test Group had one of the best records for open water rescues in the U.S. Air Force.
Read more about 6594th Test Group: Personnel, Tragic Loss, Aircraft
Famous quotes containing the words test and/or group:
“It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humour, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)