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National Reconnaissance Office
 | |
 NRO headquarters at night | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | Established: August 25, 1960 Declassified: September 18, 1992 |
| Jurisdiction | United States |
| Headquarters | Chantilly, Virginia, U.S. |
| Motto | Supra Et Ultra (Above And Beyond) |
| Annual budget | Classified |
| Agency executive |
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| Parent agency | Department of Defense |
| Website | www |
| Part of a series on the |
| United States space program |
|---|
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The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is a member of the United States Intelligence Community and an agency of the United States Department of Defense which designs, builds, launches, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government. It provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies, particularly signals intelligence (SIGINT) to the National Security Agency (NSA), imagery intelligence (IMINT) to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).[4] The NRO announced in 2023 that it plans within the following decade to quadruple the number of satellites it operates and increase the number of signals and images it delivers by a factor of ten.[5]
NRO is considered, along with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), NSA, DIA, and NGA, to be one of the "big five" U.S. intelligence agencies.[6] The NRO is headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia,[7] 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the Washington Dulles International Airport.
The Director of the NRO reports to both the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense.[8] The NRO's federal workforce is a hybrid organization consisting of some 3,000 personnel including NRO cadre, Air Force, Army, CIA, NGA, NSA, Navy and US Space Force[9] personnel.[10] A 1996 bipartisan commission report described the NRO as having by far the largest budget of any intelligence agency, and "virtually no federal workforce", accomplishing most of its work through "tens of thousands" of defense contractor personnel.[11] From its founding in 1961 the NRO's existence was classified and not revealed publicly until 1992.[12]
- ^ "NRO - Directors: Christopher Scolese". www.nro.gov. Archived from the original on 2016-10-25. Retrieved 25 October 2016.
- ^ "PDDNRO".
- ^ "Bio- Brigadier General Christopher S. Povak" (PDF). Retrieved November 3, 2022.
- ^ Federation of American Scientists. "The Evolving Role of the NRO".
- ^ Hitchens, Theresa (October 10, 2023). "NRO plans 10-fold increase in imagery, signals intel output". Breaking Defense. Retrieved October 11, 2023.
- ^ Intelligence Agencies Must Operate More Like An Enterprise
- ^ "Contact the NRO Archived 2013-10-29 at the Wayback Machine" "National Reconnaissance Office Office of Public Affairs 14675 Lee Road Chantilly, VA 20151-1715"
- ^ Official NRO Fact Sheet via http://www.nro.gov, accessed March 2012
- ^ "NRO Airmen transfer to U.S. Space Force".
- ^ "Career Opportunities". Archived from the original on 2013-10-29. Retrieved 2013-07-08.
- ^ Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community. "Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence, Chapter 13 – The Cost of Intelligence".
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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