The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense and a member of the United States Intelligence Community that designs, builds, launches, and operates reconnaissance satellites for the U.S. federal government. It provides satellite intelligence, including signals intelligence (SIGINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT), and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), to various government agencies like the NSA, NGA, and DIA. The NRO partners with organizations such as the U.S. Space Force, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX, and its activities include developing advanced satellite technology and launching assets into orbit. Keywords associated with the NRO include: reconnaissance satellites, intelligence, national security, and space-based surveillance.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
The National Reconnaissance Office is upgrading its cloud computing infrastructure and using artificial intelligence to help analysts work faster.
The National Reconnaissance Office will operate a mix of satellites of many sizes, including proliferated architectures to increase revisit time, reduce latency, provide resiliency, and enable fast refresh.
The National Reconnaissance Office is expected to award procurement contracts for long-term commercial imagery and data services sometime in 2020.
The WFIRST telescope uses a 2.4-meter primary mirror that NASA inherited from another U.S. government agency, most likely the National Reconnaissance Office.
Several cubesats aboard NG-12 are intended for later deployment, including two built for the National Reconnaissance Office as part of the IMPACT program.
The U.S. Air Force awarded United Launch Alliance a five-year $1,180,000,000 contract on 2019-09-30 to complete the last planned five Delta IV Heavy National Reconnaissance Office missions from 2020 through 2024.
The National Reconnaissance Office awarded on 2019-10-15 a commercial imagery contract of undisclosed value to Planet Labs Federal.
Toward the end of fiscal year 2020 the National Reconnaissance Office will begin to complete the study contracts announced in June and take steps toward satisfying a larger set of commercial-class GEOINT requirements.
In June 2019 the National Reconnaissance Office awarded study contracts to BlackSky, Maxar Technologies, and Planet to evaluate how commercial imagery providers could satisfy NRO needs relative to EnhancedView.
The National Reconnaissance Office operates a fleet of satellites including very large systems, smallsats, and cubesats.
Maxar won study contracts with Planet and BlackSky from the National Reconnaissance Office in June to assess commercial provider capabilities.
The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center awarded United Launch Alliance a five-year $1,180,000,000 contract for Launch Operations Support to complete the last planned five Delta 4 Heavy National Reconnaissance Office missions from 2020 through 2024.
The National Reconnaissance Office operated a Keyhole (KH-11) class electro-optical imaging satellite program that began launches in the late 1970s.
Martin Faga was director of the National Reconnaissance Office from 1989 to 1993.
The National Reconnaissance Office awarded its first commercial hyperspectral imaging study contract to HySpecIQ on 2019-09-23.
Maxar Technologies provides imagery and data products on a realtime and near-realtime basis to defense and intelligence customers, including the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and to allied countries.
The National Reconnaissance Office operates with a more streamlined organization and can move faster than the Department of Defense acquisition processes.
WFIRST will use a 2.4-meter mirror provided to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office.
AeroCube 7 launched as a secondary payload on a ULA Atlas V rocket that carried a classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite.
All future Delta 4 Heavy missions will support United States Air Force and National Reconnaissance Office customers.