The purpose of this project was to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile guidance system that used the sun for direction and positioning.

The aircraft managed to gain around 250 ft (76 m) but then settled back onto the water's surface in a nose-up attitude and slowly skiing to a stop.

[4] In 2001 a private dive team found the wreck of the B-29 in the Overton Arm of Lake Mead, using side-scan sonar.

In July 2007 the National Park Service started a six-month trial on the B-29 Lake Mead Overton site to allow private companies to conduct Guided Technical Dives.

On May 30, 2019, the Park Service opened a public comment period (through June 30, 2019) to assess allowance of commercially guided trips to the site.

However, Lake Mead's B-29 was retrofitted with observation windows, making it a suitable candidate for research on cosmic rays in the post-World War II years.

Aboard the Lake Mead B-29 was the Sun Tracker, otherwise known as Project 288, which was tasked with measuring light intensity at varying altitudes.

John Simeroth, one of the crew members aboard the plane during the crash, was responsible for calibrating the Sun Tracker.

[11] Other research using the Sun Tracker technology yielded a substantial amount of data on the general makeup of the upper atmosphere, which was beneficial for many different types of applications such as space travel, and improvements in nuclear fission.