To bolster the cover-up, a U-2 was quickly painted in NASA markings, with a fictitious NASA serial number, and put on display for the news media at the NASA Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base on 6 May 1960. The next day, Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev exposed the cover-up by revealing that the pilot had been captured, and espionage equipment had been recovered from the wreckage.

NASA began using the U-2 in 1971 to collect science data. It replaced the U-2s with ER-2s in 1981 and 1989. The aircraft were based at the NASA Ames Research Center until 1997 when they moved to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center.

On 1 May 1960, U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down by the Soviets over Sverdlovsk. He was tried in August 1960, in a three-day open trial in Moscow and was sentenced to 10 years by the USSR Supreme Court's Military Cases Collegium. He spent 21 months in prison and was then exchanged in February 1962, for Soviet intelligence officer Rudolph Abel, who had been arrested in New York in 1957.

7 May 1956
NACA Director Dr. Hugh L. Dryden issues a press release stating that U-2 aircraft are conducting weather research for NACA with Air Force support from Watertown, Nevada.