Headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, the National Reconnaissance Office (NROS) is responsible for the development, construction, launch, and operation of space-reconnaissance system. As a component of the National Intelligence Program, the NRO falls under the purview of the Department of Defense and partners with a host of other agencies tasked with monitoring and intelligence and space; these include the National GeoSpatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Naval Research Laboratory, and U.S. Strategic Command.
The NRO was established in August 1960 as a response to the somewhat disappointing results of USAF Satellite programs, which had not advanced as much as had been anticipated in the urgent era of the late 1950s. Apparently, the infrastructure to begin immediate reconnaissance ops were already in place when President Eisenhower approved the creation of the agency during a National Security Council meeting: Corona, the Officer’s first photo recon program, was also launched in August 1960.
Like some other intelligence agencies, the NRO would work in almost total anonymity for the first dozen years of its existence. The first time the Officer was mentioned was in 1971 in a New York Times article, and the first time it was officially acknowledge to even exist came in October 1973 when a Senate Committee report accidentally released info on its existence.
The Office’s existence was officially declassified in 1992.