DEVELOP | ACQUIRE | LAUNCH | OPERATE
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MAINTAINING GLOBAL
NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE ABOVE AND BEYOND 3

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is a unique agency charged with developing, acquiring, 

launching, and operating our nation’s spy satellites. The NRO’s greatest responsibility is to protect 

U.S. national security interests by delivering space-based global situational awareness for national 

decision-makers—including the U.S. president, Congress, director of national intelligence, secretary 

of defense, and the warfighter.

MAINTAINING GLOBAL VIGILANCE IN 

PEACE AND WAR 

A member of both the Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of Defense (DoD), the NRO builds 

and operates Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) space and ground systems that collect 

and process signals and imagery to discover and follow activities for a wide range of intelligence, 

defense, and civil applications, including:

 Maintaining global situational awareness in great power competition;

 Monitoring the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;

 Tracking international terrorists, drug traffickers, and criminal organizations;

 Developing highly accurate military targeting data and battle damage assessments;

 Supporting international peacekeeping, humanitarian relief operations, and natural disaster 

response and mitigation.

The NRO works collaboratively with its mission partners—such as the National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency (NGA), National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence 

Agency (DIA), and the Military Combatant Commands and Services, including U.S. Space Command and 

U.S. Space Force—to ensure analysts have the most relevant, high-quality, and timely data available to 

produce actionable intelligence products for warfighters and national decision makers.

OUR VISION 

See it, Hear it, Sense it 

OUR MISSION

Develop, acquire, launch, 

and operate the Nation’s 

space-based intelligence, 

surveillance, and 

reconnaissance capabilities 

to secure and expand the

U.S. Intelligence advantage.

OUR VALUES

 Personal Integrity and 

Accountability

 Mission Excellence

 Teamwork Built on 

Respect and Inclusion

VIGILANCE

NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE ABOVE AND BEYOND
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INNOVATIVE OVERHEAD 
NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE ABOVE AND BEYOND 5

OUR CUSTOMERS 

MILITARY SUPPORT 

The NRO collaborates with defense and IC organizations to provide global communications, indications 

and warnings, and near real-time national and commercial imagery and signals intelligence support 

to warfighter and intelligence analysis operations around the world. The NRO’s mission partners are 

increasingly fusing data derived from NRO national and commercial systems to enhance the value of 

intelligence for U.S. and allied forces in harm’s way.

CIVIL SUPPORT 

Civilian agencies rely on NRO’s commercial imagery contracts to respond to humanitarian crises, 

assess and predict climate change, assess crop production, map habitats of endangered species, 

track oil spills, study wetlands, and assess devastation from hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and 

other natural and manmade disasters.

As the number and capabilities of U.S. commercial remote sensing providers grow, the NRO is 

committed to acquiring unclassified commercial imagery to the maximum extent practical in support

of national security, defense, and civil missions. NRO is poised to fully integrate commercial sources 

into the enterprise architecture with contracts that afford broad levels of shareability by a diverse

user community.

INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS FOR 

NATIONAL SECURITY

NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE ABOVE AND BEYOND

Maxar WorldView-2 images of repairs to Sanibel 

Island Causeway after Hurricane Ian (Oct 2022)

Maxar WorldView-3 image of aftermath of Russian 

airstrikes on Mariupol Theater, Mariupol, Ukraine 

(Mar 2022)
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SIGNALS, IMAGERY,
NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE ABOVE AND BEYOND 7

OUR WORKFORCE

The NRO’s workforce consists of personnel from the IC, DoD, and private industry. Building 

and operating the NRO’s advanced reconnaissance systems requires a highly talented team 

of scientists, aerospace engineers, communications specialists, computer scientists, and 

acquisition managers. Through innovation, collaboration, and understanding customer needs

and requirements, the NRO workforce is meeting complex intelligence collection challenges

and is poised to fulfill future challenges to achieve its mission.

OUR LOCATIONS

The NRO headquarters is located in Chantilly, Virginia. The NRO maintains ground stations at 

Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado; Fort Belvoir, Virginia; and White Sands Missile Range, 

New Mexico, to support worldwide defense operations and multi-agency collection, analysis, and 

intelligence reporting. The NRO has a presence at the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, Australia, 

and the Royal Air Force Base Menwith Hill, United Kingdom, to coordinate with allies on national 

security issues. NRO has operating locations at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; 

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida; and Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado.

COMMUNICATIONS 

SATELLITES

Buckley SFB, 

Colorado

White Sands 

Missile Range, 

New Mexico

Vandenberg

SFB, California

Schriever SFB,

Colorado

NRO Headquarters

Fort Belvoir, 

Virginia

Los Angeles, 

California

Cape Canaveral

SFS, Florida

RAF Menwith Hill, 

United Kingdom

Joint Defence 

Facility Pine Gap, 

Australia

NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE ABOVE AND BEYOND
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PARTNERSHIPS AND

DIRECTOR’S INNOVATION INITIATIVE

Proposal distribution ideas from across the nation

1000+

400–999

200–399

100–199

50–99

10–40

<9

0

24

Hawaii
NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE ABOVE AND BEYOND 9

ACADEMIC OUTREACH

OUR ACADEMIC & INDUSTRY PARTNERS

In pursuit of cutting-edge technologies, the NRO works closely with universities, research institutions, 

and industry partners. As we continually seek to improve the capability of our nation’s surveillance 

and reconnaissance space architecture, these partnerships are key to discovering revolutionary leaps 

in capability to ensure the United States remains the preeminent space power.

With an eye to the future, NRO sponsors research projects at graduate technical military service 

schools, military academies, and top civilian universities. We also work closely with industry 

partners nationwide to adapt and respond to technological trends and improve spaceborne 

reconnaissance systems.

PROGRAMS THAT PROMOTE INNOVATION

DIRECTOR’S INNOVATION INITIATIVE

The Director’s Innovation Initiative (DII) is an NRO acquisition-related effort that offers non-traditional 

partners a risk-tolerant environment to explore disruptive technologies and high-payoff concepts 

relevant to the NRO mission. Over the past 23 years, more than 7,000 proposals have been submitted 

from entities across 44 states. Annually, at least 30% of the entrants have been new to DII and 

approximately 25% of projects continue after the first year (exceeding NRO’s goal of 15%).

ARCHITECTURE OF THE FUTURE PROGRAM

The Architecture of the Future (ArchF) Program is an open Broad Area Announcement/Government 

Sources Sought Announcements (BAA/GSSA) program built on the Innovation with Intent framework. 

ArchF encompasses multiple broad areas of interest to present traditional and non-traditional 

developers an opportunity to participate in building the NRO of the 21st century. Innovative ideas 

accepted by the program have a period of performance not to exceed 12 months.
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NRO HISTORY

AND HERITAGE

FOUNDING THE NRO

In the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved reconnaissance systems that included 

high-altitude balloons, airplanes, and satellites to collect strategic intelligence on the Soviet Union, 

China, and other potential threats to the United States. On Aug. 31, 1960, Secretary of the Air Force 

Dudley C. Sharp established the Office of Missile and Satellite Systems to direct the Air Force satellite 

reconnaissance program. On Sept. 6, 1961, the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense 

officially signed the first NRO charter, which established management arrangements for the National 

Reconnaissance Program. These provisions consolidated many of America’s national space and aerial 

reconnaissance projects under a covert, highly-compartmented National Reconnaissance Office. 

Decades later, on Sept. 17, 1992, the U.S. government declassified the “fact of” the NRO. 

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NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE ABOVE AND BEYOND 11

NOTABLE RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS

GRAB AND POPPY

On Aug. 24, 1959, President Eisenhower authorized the Naval Research Laboratory to develop the GRAB 

(Galactic Radiation and Background) experimental satellite to collect Soviet air-defense radar emissions. 

Ten months later, GRAB-1, America’s first signals intelligence satellite, launched from Cape Canaveral Air 

Force Station, Florida. GRAB operated from 1960-1962; its successor, POPPY, operated from 1962-1977.

CORONA 

On Aug. 18, 1960, the United States launched the first CORONA imagery intelligence satellite that 

successfully returned a photo from space. A cooperative venture between the CIA and U.S. Air Force, 

CORONA photographed “denied territories” and returned the exposed film to earth in capsules, which Air 

Force planes recovered in mid-air over the Pacific Ocean. The CORONA program flew 145 missions and 

produced more than 800,000 images. When the program ended in 1972, it boasted a significant list of 

firsts in space history:

 First man-made object retrieved from space First mid-air recovery of an object from space

 First photoreconnaissance image taken from space First mapping of the Earth from space

 First recovery of an intelligence payload from orbit First use of multiple reentry vehicles

GAMBIT

Developed in the 1960s, the GAMBIT and HEXAGON film-return satellites provided imagery of Soviet and 

Chinese nuclear installations, missile sites, and other activities in “denied territories.” Between July 

1963 and June 1967, the NRO carried out 38 missions of the first-generation GAMBIT system with a 

KH-7 camera system. Each GAMBIT-1 mission lasted just under seven days, on average, carrying about 

3,000 linear feet of film, with resolution improving from four to two feet. Between July 1966 and April 

1984, the NRO carried out 54 missions of the second-generation GAMBIT-3 system with its improved 

KH-8 camera system. The GAMBIT-3 missions averaged 31 days on orbit, and carried more than 12,000 

linear feet of film with better than a two-foot resolution.

HEXAGON

Between June 1971 and April 1986, the NRO launched the HEXAGON search satellite 20 times, with its 

KH-9 camera system to replace the CORONA system. HEXAGON carried nearly 60 linear miles of film, with 

missions averaging about four months and resolution better than two feet. Twelve HEXAGON missions 

included a mapping camera that obtained imagery with resolution between 30- and 20-feet for use by the 

U.S. Geological Survey and Defense Mapping Agency for mapping and digital terrain elevation data.

QUILL

In addition to film-return systems, in 1964 the NRO successfully launched a radar imagery experimental 

satellite known as QUILL. The QUILL satellite demonstrated radar imagery could be obtained from space and 

further established the NRO’s reputation for innovative and successful intelligence collection from space.

ADVANCED RECONNAISSANCE: KENNEN (KH-11)

On Dec. 19, 1976, the NRO launched the KENNEN (KH-11) near real-time electro-optical satellite, which 

transmitted its images to Earth via a relay satellite. As demand for satellite reconnaissance grew, the 

NRO developed increasingly sophisticated technology to collect signals and imagery intelligence from 

space. These systems contributed to the verification of arms control treaties, global transparency, and 

the end of the Cold War.

NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE ABOVE AND BEYOND
FIND US ON

N A T I O N A L R E C O N N A I S S A N C E O F F I C E 

14675 LEE ROAD CHANTILLY, VA 20151-1715 703-808-1198

NRO EMPLOYMENT/BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Diversity of thought and experience has been integral to the NRO since its founding in 1961.

We continue to strive to be a model for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility not only for 

our workforce but also for those who do business with us. To learn more about NRO employment 

opportunities, please visit www.nro.gov/careers.

For information on starting a business relationship with the NRO, please visit the

Acquisition Research Center at https://acq.westfields.net.

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NRO | MSC 23-01233 | March 2023