National Reconnaissance Office Director's Innovation Initiative Program

This has nothing to do with oil and gas … or does it? Think Colonial Pipeline.

The NRO-National Reconnaissance Office (https://www.nro.gov/ ) Director's Innovative Initiative (DII) Program funds cutting-edge scientific research for future national security intelligence needs.

NRO is a little known office. In fact, until 1992 its very existence was a classified secret.

Now, not only has it come out of the shadows. It is seeking the brightest minds and breakthrough technologies from industry, academia, national laboratories, and U.S. government agencies to provide cutting-edge scientific research in a high-risk environment to discover innovative concepts that transform overhead intelligence capabilities for future national intelligence needs.

The NRO focus is on satellite reconnaissance, which could be very useful in monitoring oil and gas pipelines, among other critical infrastructure.

More details from the NRO web site appear below.

By the way, I discovered NRO thanks to an item in a recent issue of MIT’s newsletter “The Download.” (https://forms.technologyreview.com/newsletters/briefing-the-download/ )

TIP: Google® National Reconnaissance Office to find non-NRO articles describing the agency.

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The National Reconnaissance Office Director's Innovation Initiative (DII) program funds cutting-edge scientific research in a high-risk environment to discover innovative concepts that transform overhead intelligence capabilities for future national intelligence needs.

The program seeks the brightest minds and breakthrough technologies from industry, academia, national laboratories, and U.S. government agencies.

The National Reconnaissance Office (https://www.nro.gov/ ) Director's Innovative Initiative (DII) Program funds cutting-edge scientific research for future national security intelligence needs.
The National Reconnaissance Office Director's Innovation Initiative (DII) program funds cutting-edge scientific research in a high-risk environment to discover innovative concepts that transform overhead intelligence capabilities for future national intelligence needs.

The program seeks the brightest minds and breakthrough technologies from industry, academia, national laboratories, and U.S. government agencies.

Director's Innovation Initiative

The Director's Innovation Initiative provides a risk-tolerant environment to invest across the United States in cutting edge technologies and high payoff concepts relevant to the NRO's mission of Innovative Overhead Intelligence Systems for National Security.

Program Objectives

    Provide continuous access to revolutionary concepts and ideas
    Provide access to non-traditional developers of NRO technology and broaden the developer base
    Establish a risk tolerant environment for conducting potentially high payoff projects

Program Philosophy

    Reach out to a broad range of potential offerors
        UNCLASSIFIED solicitation via Federal Business Opportunities
        Open to industry, academia and US Government sources
    Seek a wide range of ideas
        Areas of Interest reflect the NRO Strategic Goals
        Most innovative ideas are funded -- no quotas for any given area
    Prove feasibility of key concepts
        Fund many ideas by limiting project funding and duration
    Goal is 10 – 15% of completed projects developed further

Be on the lookout for the FY22 DII Broad Area and Government Sources Sought Announcements (BAA / GSAA) in June 2021. Keep checking the Innovation Web Portal on the Acquisition Center of Excellence, Acquisition Research Center (ARC) website for further details.
Architecture After Next (AAN)

The Architecture After Next (AAN) Program is an Open Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), built using the FY21-22 AS&T BAA Framework - Architecture After Next, consisting of multiple broad areas of interest providing traditional and non-traditional developers an opportunity to participate in building the NRO of the 21st century by presenting innovative idea. Innovative ideas can be submitted through 30 September 2022. The period performance is not to exceed 12 months. Visit the Acquisition Research Center for more information.

Tactical Defense Space Reconnaissance Program

The Tactical Defense Space Reconnaissance (TacDSR) Program expeditiously develops, matures, and integrates technologies that enhance the access, content and timeliness of NRO Overhead Systems data products and services for the Warfighter. The program accomplishes this objective by pursuing highly selective, short duration, high pay-off Research and Development activities, funding about 30 such projects each year.

TacDSR Deactivation FAQs

Request an NRO Speaker

Do you want to invite an NRO speaker to your event?  Fill out the NRO Speaker Invitation Request Form and email to publicaffairs@nro.mil
Contracting Opportunities

Learn about contracting opportunities with the NRO.

June 16 2020- On Thursday, June 11, 2020, the NRO released an unclassified Request for Information(RFI) on a draft End User License Agreement construct designed to ensure maximum shareability of commercial imagery across a diverse user community. The RFI seeks industry comment on the proposed construct. Interested respondents should visit the Acquisition Center of Excellence, Acquisition Research Center, CSPO Phase B.
source: https://www.nro.gov/Business-Innovation-Opportunities/mc_cid/10ff9cd289/mc_eid/76363cef0a/
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About the NRO
Develop. Acquire. Launch. Operate.

When the United States needs eyes and ears in critical places where no human can reach – be it over the most rugged terrain or through the most hostile territory – it turns to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The NRO is the U.S. Government agency in charge of designing, building, launching, and maintaining America’s intelligence satellites. Whether creating the latest innovations in satellite technology, contracting with the most cost-efficient industrial supplier, conducting rigorous launch schedules, or providing the highest-quality products to our customers, we never lose focus on who we are working to protect: our Nation and its citizens.

From our inception in 1961 to our declassification to the public in 1992, we have worked tirelessly to provide the best reconnaissance support possible to the Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of Defense (DoD). We are unwavering in our dedication to fulfilling our vision: Supra Et Ultra: Above and Beyond.

    The National Reconnaissance Office
    Leadership
    NRO Brochure
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One result of Googling National Reconnaissance Office …

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The Verge
It’s Sentient: Meet the classified artificial brain being developed by US intelligence programs
By Sarah Scoles Jul 31, 2019
[ EXCERPTS ]

AtAt the final session of the 2019 Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, attendees straggled into a giant ballroom to listen to an Air Force official and a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) executive discuss, as the panel title put it, “Enterprise Disruption.” The presentation stayed as vague as the title until a direct question from the audience seemed to make the panelists squirm.
Just how good, the person wondered, had the military and intelligence communities’ algorithms gotten at interpreting data and taking action based on that analysis? They pointed out that the commercial satellite industry has software that can tally shipping containers on cargo ships and cars in parking lots soon after their pictures are snapped in space. “When will the Department of Defense have real-time, automated, global order of battle?” they asked.
“That’s a great question,” said Chirag Parikh, director of the NGA’s Office of Sciences and Methodologies. “And there’s a lot of really good classified answers.”
He paused and shifted in his seat. “What’s the next question?” he asked, smiling. But he continued talking, describing how “geospatial intelligence” no longer simply means pictures from satellites. It means anything with a timestamp and a location stamp, and the attempt to integrate all that sundry data.
Then, Parikh actually answered this question: When would that translate to near-instantaneous understanding and strategy development?
“If not now,” he said, “very soon.”
Sentient is (or at least aims to be) an omnivorous analysis tool
Parkih didn’t mention any particular programs that might help enable this kind of autonomous, real-time interpretation. But an initiative called Sentient has relevant capabilities. A product of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Sentient is (or at least aims to be) an omnivorous analysis tool, capable of devouring data of all sorts, making sense of the past and present, anticipating the future, and pointing satellites toward what it determines will be the most interesting parts of that future. That, ideally, makes things simpler downstream for human analysts at other organizations, like the NGA, with which the satellite-centric NRO partners.
Until now, Sentient has been treated as a government secret, except for vague allusions in a few speeches and presentations. But recently released documents — many formerly classified secret or top secret — reveal new details about the program’s goals, progress, and reach.
Research related to Sentient has been going on since at least October 2010, when the agency posted a request for Sentient Enterprise white papers. A presentation says the program achieved its first R&D milestone in 2013, but details about what that milestone actually was remain redacted. (Deputy director of NRO’s Office of Public Affairs Karen Furgerson declined to comment on this timing in an email to The Verge.) A 2016 House Armed Services Committee hearing on national security space included a quick summary of this data-driven brain, but public meetings haven’t mentioned it since. In 2018, a presentation posted online claimed Sentient would go live that year, although Furgerson told The Verge it was currently under development.
The agency has been developing this artificial brain for years
“The NRO has not said much about Sentient publicly because it is a classified program,” says Furgerson in an email, “and NRO rarely appears before Congress in open hearings.”
The agency has been developing this artificial brain for years, but details available to the public remain scarce. “It ingests high volumes of data and processes it,” says Furgerson. “Sentient catalogs normal patterns, detects anomalies, and helps forecast and model adversaries’ potential courses of action.” The NRO did not provide examples of patterns or anomalies, but one could imagine that things like “not moving a missile” versus “moving a missile” might be on the list. Those forecasts in hand, Sentient could turn satellites’ sensors to the right place at the right time to catch ill will (or whatever else it wants to see) in action. “Sentient is a thinking system,” says Furgerson.

Free full text source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/31/20746926/sentient-national-reconnaissance-office-spy-satellites-artificial-intelligence-ai
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Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

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