The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) official have discussed agency's focus on maintaining the United States' intelligence advantage amid rapid technological advancements and evolving threats, said a senior leader from the agency.

Troy Meink, NRO's principal deputy director, said these forces, combined with growing stakeholder demands for real-time data, have created a generational change in how the agency innovates and deploys new technology to serve the warfighter and intelligence community partners. 

"The NRO has always supported the needs of the warfighters in an operational environment. What's new is the rate of change, increasing complexity and the expanding set of information that we need to fuse and deliver quickly," Meink said during a Schriever Spacepower Series discussion hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Virginia.  

"And that's where our focus is: working across the whole-of-government to ensure that we do this efficiently and we deliver the capability to our customers," he said. "In the end, the mission drives how we operate, and that's where we are today." 

Established in the 1960's, the NRO is tasked with acquiring, developing, launching and operating space-based intelligence capabilities in support of the U.S. intelligence community, the Defense Department and key allies throughout the globe. Meink said today that, while NRO's core mission remains the same, it now faces ever-increasing demands from stakeholders for rapid collection dissemination of critical information and increasing competition in the space domain.  

"China and Russia continue to challenge our nation's space advantage," he said. "Each has developed and deployed counter-space capabilities that are designed to place U.S. satellites and ground capabilities at risk," he said. "This includes on-orbit weapons systems but also ground-based weapons systems" in addition to cyber capabilities. 

To stay ahead of the challenges, Meink said, the NRO remains focused on modernizing the United States' Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance capabilities and the supporting ground infrastructure used by warfighters and intelligence professionals.  

He added that partnerships across the interagency and with private industry are key to rapidly innovating and meeting today's demands. The NRO has also focused extensively on its workforce, Meink said, in adapting to today's challenges. He noted, for instance, the growth of NRO's internship program which now receives approximately 50 applicants per every intern hired. "Success is directly related to talent," he said, adding that attracting and maintaining "world class technical talent" is a primary focus among senior NRO officials.

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