The United States'
National Reconnaissance Office
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. f ...
's Program A was a component of the
National Reconnaissance Program (NRP). Program A took the remnants of the Air Force Office of Special Projects (the successor to the ill-fated
SAMOS
Samos (, also ; , ) is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese archipelago, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the Mycale Strait. It is also a separate reg ...
program office, and redesignated it and refocused its efforts onto the next generation of
imagery intelligence
Imagery intelligence (IMINT), pronounced as either as ''Im-Int'' or ''I-Mint'', is an intelligence gathering discipline wherein imagery is analyzed (or "exploited") to identify information of intelligence value. Imagery used for defense intell ...
gathering satellites (i.e.
CORONA/Discoverer,
KH-7/8 GAMBIT,
KH-9 HEXAGON
KH-9 (Byeman Control System, BYEMAN codename HEXAGON), commonly known as Big Bird or KeyHole-9, p.32 Big Bird was a series of photographic reconnaissance satellites launched by the United States between 1971 and 1986. Of twenty launch attempt ...
).
See also
*
National Reconnaissance Office
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. f ...
(NRO)
*
Program B - NRO efforts run by the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA)
*
Program C - NRO signals intelligences satellite efforts run by the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
*
Program D - NRO air reconnaissance efforts run by the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
References
National Reconnaissance Office
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