Statement for the Record by 

Dr. Donald M. Kerr 

Director, National Reconnaissance Office 

For the Hearing on the 

FY 2007 National Defense Authorization Budget Request 

To the House Armed Serviced Committee 

Strategic Forces Subcommittee 

16 March 2006 
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Introduction 

Thank you for the opportunity to come before your 

subcommittee to talk about the National Reconnaissance 

Office (NRO), its future, the relationship between the NRO and 

the larger national security space establishment, and the very 

important role the NRO plays on a daily basis in direct and 

indirect support to the warfighter. 

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for what we do must be 

tempered today by the fact that this is an unclassified hearing. 

While it is a privilege to be able to share with you some 

insight into the NRO and what we do for our nation, I will not 

be able to go into detail and I ask that you keep this in mind 

when we proceed to your questions. I would welcome the 

opportunity to meet with you separately to discuss the NRO in 

greater depth and my plans for its future. Better yet, please 

consider a visit to the NRO to get a first-hand look at what we 

do. 

The Future of the NRO 

Last July the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), with the 

concurrence of the Director of National Intelligence, appointed 

me as the 15th Director of the NRO. While the job was new, my 

familiarity with the NRO and its programs was not. In 2001, I 

was charged by the SECDEF and then Director of Central 

Intelligence to lead a panel to assess how innovative remote 

sensing technologies could support future national security 

needs. The panel findings and recommendations, published in 
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October 2001, remain largely valid today, but the urgency is 

greater than ever. Today’s national security depends more than 

ever on capabilities that can only be delivered from space; the 

only place we can achieve the degree of global situational 

awareness needed by the Intelligence Community (IC) and the 

Department of Defense (DoD). In order to meet these needs, the 

NRO must develop systems with the ability to cue other systems 

and users, and at the same time provide focused collection 

anytime and anywhere. Because today’s users are fundamentally 

different, they are no longer satisfied with data; they are 

rightly demanding information tailored to their interests and 

problems, a by-product of our fast-paced world, where timely 

decisions impact the lives of our warfighters and the security 

of our nation. 

In order to meet these demanding needs the NRO will pursue 

two strategic goals: 

 - Be the foundation for global situational awareness and; 

- Provide intelligence within timelines responsive to user 

needs. 

Meeting these goals will require the NRO to plan, develop, 

and manage an integrated architecture focused on creating 

intelligence value for our users. An important aspect will be 

the use of the latest technologies on the ground to realize and 

take advantage of new capabilities for existing overhead 

systems. Our ground systems will be essential enablers for the 

cueing, tip-off, and information fusion capabilities required to 
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build comprehensive understanding of our adversaries’ actions 

and intentions. In fact, because of the leverage we can achieve 

on the ground, ground-based capabilities will be as critical as 

overhead collection in meeting the need for actionable 

intelligence. 

The NRO cannot do this without the strong partnership with 

our key stakeholders and mission partners. Our relationships 

with the military services, USSTRATCOM, National Security Agency 

(NSA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Homeland 

Security, and others are critical in helping us meet our 

worldwide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

responsibilities. Certainly, one of our most important 

stakeholders is the U.S. Congress, and I ask your support in 

implementing the changes required to keep pace with today’s 

threats. 

The NRO and National Security Space 

One topic of particular interest today is the nature of the 

relationship between the NRO and the DoD--in particular the Air 

Force space community. The NRO and the Air Force have a 

cooperative and collaborative partnership which is critical to 

our mutual success. We leverage each other’s expertise and 

resources to meet each of our unique mission objectives. 

However, space is our common operating environment, not our 

mission. Even so, the NRO and the Air Force have intersecting 

interests in areas such as personnel, mission assurance 

standards for spacecraft, assured access to space through launch 
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services, spacecraft development, and providing ways to best 

support the warfighter. I am excited to say we have a long 

history of successful collaboration with the Air Force and I 

expect it to strengthen. Some areas of success include: 

- Manning. The NRO is a joint venture between the DoD and 

the IC. The NRO could not do what it does today without the 

commitment of all the military services and their remarkably 

talented and extremely capable personnel. The Air Force 

provides nearly half of the NRO’s workforce. The Navy, Army, 

and Marines also provide technical and support staff. We are 

actively engaged with our Service partners, especially the Air 

Force, in ensuring that we have a robust, dedicated, career 

space cadre for the national security space community. 

- Mission Assurance. Satellites are expensive and complex, 

operating in a very extreme environment. Because of this, they 

require unique engineering, design, and testing considerations 

to meet the mission requirement over the life of the spacecraft. 

Improving on mission assurance is a concern of the NRO and an 

area in which the NRO is strengthening its collaboration with 

the Air Force. The NRO is in close coordination with the Air 

Force on common spacecraft issues, such as parts, materials, 

technologies, standards, and acquisition policies. 

- Launch. The NRO collaborates with the Air Force on 

launch vehicle acquisitions, as well as launch base operations 

and infrastructure to support NRO launches. Recognizing the 

lack of a robust commercial market that meets our requirements, 
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the NRO and Air Force have worked shoulder-to-shoulder over the 

past two years to develop a strategy for future launch vehicle 

acquisitions. Additionally, the NRO relies on Air Force 

aircraft and crews to transport our spacecraft from the factory 

to the launch base. 

- Spacecraft/Sensor Integration. The NRO has a 

longstanding and successful history with the Air Force as well 

as other military services of hosting payloads that help meet 

system and service requirements. Maintaining this flexibility 

is an effective way for us to reduce the cost of placing 

capabilities in space, particularly for demonstration payloads. 

These are but a few examples of our close partnerships and 

their importance. However, in the end, what is truly important 

is how we ultimately serve our customers. Of particular 

importance today is what we do for the warfighter. 

Support to Military Operations 

For over the past decade, one of the real success stories 

at the NRO has been the aggressive path we have taken to find 

new and innovative ways to support our men and women in uniform. 

This is an outgrowth of our experiences and the lessons we 

learned in the first Gulf War. The capabilities to acquire and 

deliver timely information to the battlefield were growing, but 

still immature. At the same time, the military was coming to 

the realization that space capabilities could be a powerful 

force multiplier if fully used, and the support could be both 
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reliable and tailored to their needs. This is where we continue 

to place a lot of effort. 

In response to the attacks of 11 September 2001, and in 

support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF) and Operation IRAQI 

FREEDOM (OIF), the NRO established internal crisis support 

working groups to serve as focal points for NRO-wide support to 

coalition forces engaged in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

The goal was to ensure all pertinent NRO capabilities, both 

proven and in development, contributed to achieving warfighter 

success. Areas of specific support included NRO personnel 

deployments to ensure “help on-hand”, training of deployed and 

deploying warfighter forces, and the provision of new or updated 

NRO-developed equipment, systems, and data applications to 

satisfy specific warfighter needs. These ad-hoc groups can be 

immediately established to support any national or world crises 

that require national technical means support. 

NRO Personnel Deployments. The NRO deployed government and 

contractor personnel to the combat theaters in support of OEF 

and OIF and others were deployed to major combatant commands. 

These forward-deployed NRO personnel augmented the warfighter’s 

operations and provided the technical expertise needed intheater to fully exploit national systems. Additional NRO 

personnel were also deployed to the combat theaters for short 

periods to execute specific support activities. 

Training the Warfighters. In fiscal year (FY) 2005, the 

NRO provided multi-discipline education and training to more 
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than 4,000 personnel attending Service Schoolhouses and 

Professional Military Education Institutions. Additionally, 

hands-on training during exercises, experiments, and 

demonstrations involving live and simulated national systems 

support, occurred during 40 major military exercises worldwide. 

As another part of this effort, the NRO deployed mobile 

education training teams (METTs) designed to ensure the maximum 

impact of NRO capabilities. During FY 2005, over 30 METTs 

visited four theaters of operations, touching over 80 elements, 

units, and commands, including forward deployed warfighters in 

the USCENTCOM theater. Members of this team, which routinely 

included NGA and NSA personnel, taught troops the latest 

techniques to fully exploit NRO systems, derived data, and 

capabilities. 

NRO-developed Equipment, Systems, and Data Applications. 

Following 11 September 2001, the NRO assessed its many systems 

and capabilities for their potential applicability to the Global 

War on Terror (GWOT). The NRO refocused and developed new 

capabilities. A few examples follow: 

- Blue Force Tracking (BFT) devices. These devices provide 

operational commanders periodic reports on the locations of 

their forces depicted automatically as icons on a map display. 

These BFT displays enhance commanders' situational awareness, 

providing them the opportunity for quicker, more-refined 

analyses, decision-making, and operational execution. 
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- Battlespace Visualization Initiative System. This system 

provides planners and analysts 3-D displays of U.S. multiple 

intelligence collection operations against a specific area. In 

its GWOT application, it allows planners and analysts 

interactive visualizations of collection opportunities that can 

be used in counterterrorist operations management, analysis, and 

research. 

- The Threat HUMINT Reporting, Evaluation, Analysis, and 

Display System. This software prototype assists analysts in 

corroborating data from human intelligence reporting by 

performing an automated comparison to data from national 

systems. Information corroborated by several sources leads to 

more actionable intelligence that can be used more effectively 

against our adversaries. 

The NRO's Deputy Director for Military Support leads these 

efforts and provides the national technical system focus to 

effectively support U.S. and coalition counterterrorist military 

operations worldwide. As you can see, our support spans 

deploying knowledgeable people, providing the training, and 

delivering the much-needed systems to enhance warfighters 

exploitation of national systems capabilities. 

Conclusion 

This is a time of challenge and change for the NRO, and I 

believe it is important you have the full context for what we 

are doing to ensure the NRO is keeping up with the evolving 

threat, and meeting the needs of a more demanding and 
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knowledgeable community. I repeat my invitation for you to 

visit the NRO for an in-depth look at what we do and to meet the 

outstanding people who make it possible. 

Thank you and I look forward to your questions.