Mitre Corporation The MITRE Corporation ( stylized as MITRE ) is an American not - for - profit organization based in Bedford , Massachusetts and McLean , Virginia . It manages Federally Funded Research and Development Center s ( FFRDCs ) supporting the Department of Defense ( DOD ) , the Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA ) , the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ) , the Department of Veterans Affairs ( VA ) , the Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) , the Administrative Office of the U . S . Courts on behalf of the Federal Judiciary , and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ( CMS ) . History . Under the leadership of C . W . Halligan , MITRE was formed in 1958 to provide overall direction to the companies and workers involved in the US Air Force SAGE project . Most of the early employees were transferred to MITRE from the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) , where SAGE was being developed . In April 1959 , a site was purchased in Bedford , Massachusetts near Hanscom Air Force Base , to develop a new MITRE laboratory , which MITRE occupied in September 1959 . After the SAGE project ended in the early 1960s , the FAA selected MITRE to develop a similar system to provide automated air traffic control . The result of the project formed the National Airspace System ( NAS ) , that is still in use today . To support the NAS project and continual operations with the US Department of Defense at the Pentagon , MITRE opened a second " main office " in McLean , Virginia . Through the 1960s , MITRE developed and supported military Command , Control , Communications and Intelligence ( C3I ) projects , including the Airborne Warning and Control System ( AWACS ) . MITRE also worked on a number of projects with ARPA , including precursors to the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network ARPANET . Since the 1960s , MITRE has developed or supported most DoD early warning and communications projects , including the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System JTIDS and the Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System JSTARS . During the 1980s , the German hacker Markus Hess used an un - secured MITRE Tymnet connection as an entry point for intrusions into US Department of Defense , Department of Energy , and NASA computer networks . On July 10 , 1985 , mitre . org was the first . org domain name registered , and it remains in use by the company today . On October 1 , 1990 , the FAA selected MITRE to operate its FFRDC , the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development ( CAASD ) . On January 29 , 1996 , MITRE divided into two entities : The MITRE Corporation to focus on its FFRDCs for DoD and FAA , and a new company , named Mitretek Systems ( now called Noblis ) to assume non - FFRDC work for other US Government agencies . In July 1998 , the Internal Revenue Service selected MITRE to manage its FFRDC , the Center for Enterprise Modernization ( CEM ) . In 2005 , a team from MITRE competed in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge , and qualified in 23rd place for the final race . On March 6 , 2009 , the Department of Homeland Security selected MITRE to operate the Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute ( HS SEDI ) . On December 2 , 2010 , the Administrative Office of the U . S . Courts selected MITRE to operate the Judiciary Engineering and Modernization Center ( JEMC ) FFRDC . The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services selected MITRE to operate an FFRDC in October 2012 . Organization . FFRDCs and research program . MITRE is organized as follows : Locations . MITRE operates branch offices around the world , many co - located with military installations . Awards , honors , and accomplishments . Over the years , MITRE has received awards for corporate achievements as well as for achievements of its scientists , researchers , and engineers . A sampling includes MITRE employees have created more than 40 technologies available for licensing , generated more than 30 packages of downloadable software , and been granted more than 80 US patents .