United States Department of Defense - National Reconnaissance Office

Formed 1961
Headquarters Chantilly, Virginia
Employees Approximately 3000
Annual Budget Classified

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), located in Chantilly, Virginia, is one of the 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. It designs, builds and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the United States government.It also coordinates collection and analysis of information from airplane and satellite reconnaissance by the military services and the Central Intelligence Agency.It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, which is part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program. The agency is part of the Department of Defense.

The NRO works closely with its intelligence and space partners, which include the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the United States Strategic Command, Naval Research Laboratory and many other high level agencies and organizations. The NRO is responsible for operating Ground Stations around the world which collect and distribute intelligence gathered from reconnaissance satellites.