National Reconnaissance Office
| Agency Name : | National Reconnaissance Office |
|---|---|
| Acronym : | NRO |
| Web Site : | https://www.nro.gov/ |
NRO develops and operates the world’s most capable and innovative overhead reconnaissance systems to collect intelligence for U.S. national security, and to support disaster relief and humanitarian efforts.
NRO consists of ~3,000 personnel, jointly staffed by its own cadre workforce, members of the armed services, DoD civilians, Intelligence Community officers, and independent contractors. The NRO is led by Dr. Chris Scolese, the organization’s first Senate-confirmed director.
Headquartered in Chantilly, Va., NRO maintains ground stations at Buckley Space Force Base, Colo.; Fort Belvoir, Va.; White Sands Missile Range, N.M.; as well as a presence in Australia and the United Kingdom. NRO has launch offices at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., and Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. OUR AUTHORITIES The NRO director reports to both the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense, and operates under both Title 10 and Title 50 authorities. NRO receives taskings for its assets from functional managers (e.g. director NSA is the functional manager for Signals Intelligence, director NGA is the functional manager for Geospatial Intelligence). Functional managers—not the NRO—are responsible for setting and prioritizing collection requirements for NRO assets.
The NRO—one of 18 Intelligence Community members—was established in September 1961 as a classified agency in the Department of Defense. The existence of the NRO and its mission were declassified in September 1992. The first publicly acknowledged NRO satellite launch took place at Vandenberg Space Force Base in December 1996 on a Titan IV rocket. Today, NRO continues to launch from Vandenberg as well as Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, and the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand.
