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Dr. Chris Scolese

WSBR Roundtable – Opening Remarks

20 July 2021 1300-1400 ET

Moderator: Rob Scheige / Vice President, WSBR

Good afternoon everybody. Thanks for having me.

A lot of you out there know “about” the NRO, but not everybody

knows exactly what we do.

The NRO turns 60 in about six weeks, so I want to spend a little time 

on our history. But I want to spend more time looking ahead. 

When the NRO was formed in 1961, the U.S. already had a very 

clear understanding that our modern way of life— our economy, our military 

and our national security— would hinge upon our access to, and freedom 

to operate in space. Since then, NRO’s mission has been to maintain and 

expand our intelligence advantage in space, to protect and defend the 

United States. 

For six decades running, we’ve done just that, by providing the 

greatest ISR imagery and data on the planet. On any given day, we service 

about a half-million users across government, including DoD, every IC 

agency, a couple dozen domestic agencies, policy-makers, decisionmakers, and most importantly, we provide direct support for our 

warfighters. 

But right now, the U.S. is locked in a power competition, in a very

strategic environment, where an incredible amount of time and resources 
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are being expended trying to threaten or challenge our operational 

advantage in space, and the capabilities we provide.

Here’s what we know...

 We know China and Russia are investing heavily in counter-space 

capabilities— newer and better assets, and more weaponry. Their 

large-scale, rapid buildup might be the worst-kept secret in recent 

memory. 

 And we know why they’re engaged in this competition: a 

commanding position in space is critical to their economic, 

diplomatic, and military interests.

That’s where we are. Here’s where we’re going...

NRO will continue to be a cornerstone in our Nation’s strategic and 

operational upper-hand in space, through unrivaled situational 

awareness and intelligence through the best imagery and signals data 

on the planet.

But to do that, we have to accelerate and we have to improve. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to counter the threats we’re facing.

We’re making architectural changes to improve resiliency, 

increase capacity and capabilities, and assure the delivery of NRO 

mission-essential functions. This is our “diversified” architecture— made 

up of national and commercial satellites, large and small constellations, 

across multiple orbits. 

We have to continue leveraging the commercial industry. 

Commercial partners now provide imagery as a service, which allows us to 
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focus on the difficult tasks. In some cases, we can buy entire systems, and 

adopt or adapt them for our own purposes.

Commercial capabilities, like launch, production spacecraft and 

computing, have allowed us to move faster and reduce cost.

We have to continue the evolution of our acquisition process. NRO is 

known across government to for our ability to reduce traditionally 

lengthy development cycles. This has allowed us to explore unique 

capabilities to meet our mission needs. 

Through programs like our Director's Innovation Initiative, we’re 

actively seeking out new suppliers, cutting edge technologies and high 

payoff concepts across the entire spectrum of capabilities. This approach 

has already given us opportunities to explore applications for A-I and 

machine-learning, experiment with prototypes, and develop diverse and 

more efficient ways of distributing data. 

Finally, we have to continue the evolution and diversification of 

our workforce. I can’t commend our people enough. We had a record year 

during the pandemic and our capabilities didn’t waver. But we’re not doing 

our job if we’re not doing more to canvass, recruit, develop, train and equip 

the next generation to stand-up and take their place among us. New 

voices lead to new insights, and new ideas. We have to challenge our 

knowledge base, and we have to make a deliberate commitment to support 

our growth.

These priorities, along with our continued partnerships across 

industry and international partners, will allow us to continue leading the way 
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in the space domain, and keep delivering what we have for 60 years

running.

Before I turn it back over for questions, I want to congratulate Jeff 

Bezos and the Blue Origin team for their successful launch and landing 

down in West Texas. We had folks all across the building gathered around 

TVs, watching it live. All of us at NRO hope it’s the first of many successful 

flights to come.

Rob?