Boeing EC-135E AriaBoeing EC 135E Aria Snoopy airplane model. During the early 1960s, NASA and the Department of Defense needed a mobile tracking and telemetry platform to support the Apollo space program and other unmanned space flight operations. In a joint project, NASA and the DoD contracted with the McDonnell Douglas and the Bendix Corporations to modify eight Boeing C 135 Stratolifter cargo aircraft into Apollo Range Instrumentation Aircraft (A RIA). Equipped with