68-508: During the second half of 2002, the Naval Research Laboratory studied the tactical application of space assets. Relatively new technologies and processes in the areas of microsatellites , affordable and quick-response launch vehicles, and the classified SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network) made tactical use of space assets possible in the relatively near term. The DoD's Office of Force Transformation (OFT) agreed with
136-617: A Master of Science degree typically is hired at a salary in the GS-11 range; someone with a PhD typically is hired at a salary in the GS-12 range. NRL has the flexibility to offer partial student loan repayments for new hires. According to the NRL Fact Book (2016), of NRL civilian full-time permanent employees, 870 had a doctorate, 417 had a master's, and 576 had a bachelor's as their highest degree. The laboratory also hosts post-doctoral researchers and
204-657: A mansion on the highlands to the east. Zachariah Berry purchased the land in 1827, who rented it out for various purposes including a fishery at Blue Plains . The mansion was demolished during the Civil War to build Fort Greble . In 1873 the land was purchased by the federal government as the Bellevue Annex to the Naval Gun Factory , and several buildings were constructed including the Commandant's house, "Quarters A", which
272-611: A marking dye to help locate survivors of disasters at sea. A thermal diffusion process was conceived and used to supply some of the U-235 isotope needed for one of the first atomic bombs. Also, many new devices that developed from booming wartime industry were type tested and then certified as reliable for the Fleet. As a result of the scientific accomplishments of the WWII, the United States emerged into
340-589: A range of R&D facilities. 2014 additions included the NRL Nanoscience Institute's 5,000 sq ft (460 m ) Class 100 nanofabrication cleanroom; quiet and ultra-quiet measurement labs; and the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR). The Naval Research Laboratory has a long history of spacecraft development. This includes the second, fifth and seventh American satellites in Earth orbit,
408-540: A satellite as it passes overhead. Collected data will be delivered to field commanders in minutes rather than hours or days. All TacSats have been launched on Minotaur launch vehicles . These series of spacecraft should not be confused with the TACSAT program in 1969. This article about one or more spacecraft of the United States is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory ( NRL )
476-584: A small squadron of research aircraft termed Scientific Development Squadron (VXS) 1 . Its missions include, for example, Rampant Lion, which used sophisticated airborne instrumentation (gravimeters, magnetometers and hyperspectral cameras) to collect precise 3D topography of two-thirds of Afghanistan and locate natural resources (underground gas and mineral deposits, vegetation types, etc.) there and in Iraq and Colombia. The Division of Plasma Physics conducts research and development into ionized matter. NRL currently holds
544-691: A wide variety of basic research and applied research relevant to the US Navy. NRL scientists and engineers author over 1200 openly published research papers in a wide range of conferences, symposia, and journals each year. It has a history of scientific breakthroughs and technological achievements dating back to its foundation in 1923. In some instances the laboratory's contributions to military technology have been declassified decades after those technologies have become widely adopted. In 2011, NRL researchers published 1,398 unclassified scientific and technical articles, book chapters and conference proceedings. In 2008,
612-667: Is also involved in weather forecasting models such as the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting model released in 2007. NRL has a long history of contributions to materials science, dating back to the use of Industrial radiography with gamma rays for the nondestructive inspection of metal casings and welds on Navy vessels beginning in the 1920s. Modern mechanical fracture mechanics were pioneered at NRL and were subsequently applied to solve fracture problems in Navy vessels, commercial aircraft and Polaris missiles. That knowledge
680-514: Is also used for high-efficiency solar cells like those aboard NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers currently on Mars. NRL discovered solar-wind hydrogen in Apollo lunar soil samples provided by a NASA-funded research mission. Fundamental aspects of stealth technology were developed at NRL, including the radar absorption mechanisms in ferrite-containing materials. Metal bearing surface treatments using Cr ion implantation researched at NRL nearly tripled
748-574: Is equivalent to GS-11 Step 1 through GS-13 Step 10. NRL's Pay Band IV corresponds to the GS-14 Step 1 to GS-15 Step 10 pay grades, inclusive, while NRL's Pay Band V can pay above GS-15 Step 10 and corresponds to the Senior Technologist (ST) pay grade elsewhere in the civil service. For new graduates, someone with a Bachelor of Science degree typically is hired at a salary in the GS-7 range; someone with
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#1732852271430816-893: Is in Washington, D.C., near the southernmost part of the District. It is on the Potomac River and is immediately south of (but is not part of) Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling . This campus is immediately north of the Blue Plains site of the DC Water Authority. Exit 1 of northbound I-295 leads directly to Overlook Avenue and the NRL Main Gate. The U.S. Postal Service operates a post office on the NRL main campus. In addition, NRL operates several field sites and satellite facilities: Artifacts found on
884-565: Is in widespread use today in applications ranging from design of nuclear reactors to aircraft, submarines and toxic material storage tanks. NRL developed the synthesis of high-purity GaAs crystals used in a myriad of modern high frequency transceivers including cellular phones, satellite communication systems, commercial and military radar systems including those aboard all US combat aircraft and ARM, Phoenix, AIM-9L and AMRAAM missiles. NRL's GaAs inventions were licensed by Rockwell, Westinghouse, Texas Instruments and Hughes Research. High-purity GaAs
952-527: Is not quite a perfect sphere: it is slightly pear-shaped, elevated at the North Pole and flattened at the South Pole . It corrected ideas about the atmosphere's density at high altitudes and improved the accuracy of world maps. The Vanguard program was transferred to NASA when that agency was created in mid-1958. The Vanguard "Satellite Launch Vehicle", a term invented for the operational SLV rockets as opposed to
1020-435: Is responsible for research and development in support of the Navy's tactical electronic warfare requirements and missions. These include electronic warfare support measures, electronic countermeasures, and supporting counter-countermeasures, as well as studies, analyses, and simulations for determining and improving the performance of Electronic Warfare systems. NRL TEW includes aerial, surface, and ground EW within its scope. NRL
1088-485: Is responsible for the identification, friend or foe (IFF) system and a number of other advances. The Information Technology Division features an information security R&D group, which is where the IETF's IP Security ( IPsec ) protocols were originally developed. The Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) protocol developed at NRL is widely used for virtual private network (VPN) connections worldwide. The projects developed by
1156-500: Is still in use today. The Naval Research Laboratory came into existence from an idea that originated from Thomas Edison . In a May 1915 editorial piece in the New York Times Magazine , Edison wrote; "The Government should maintain a great research laboratory... In this could be developed...all the technique of military and naval progression without any vast expense." This statement addressed concerns about World War I in
1224-583: Is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps . It was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, applied research, technological development and prototyping. The laboratory's specialties include plasma physics , space physics , materials science , and tactical electronic warfare . NRL is one of the first US government scientific R&D laboratories, having opened in 1923 at
1292-573: The Army Corps of Engineers , were 14 stations along a north–south line running along the east coast of North America and the west coast of South America. Minitrack was the forerunner of another NRL-developed system called NAVSPASUR , which remains operational today under the control of the Air Force and is a major producer of spacecraft tracking data. The original schedule called for the TV3 to be launched during
1360-677: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the network of ground tracking stations was assumed to be a Navy project. The Navy proposal detailed all three aspects of the mission. In August 1955, the US DOD Committee on Special Capabilities chose the Navy's proposal as it appeared most likely, by spring 1958, to fulfill the following: Another consideration was that the Navy proposal used civilian sounding rockets rather than military missiles, which were considered inappropriate for peaceful scientific exploration. What went unstated at
1428-583: The NP pay system, 103 civilian technicians in the NR pay system, 383 civilian administrative specialists/professionals in the NO pay system, and 238 civilian administrative support staff in the NC pay system. NRL scientists & engineers typically are in the (NP) pay group in NRL's Pay Band system. The NP-II pay band is equivalent to GS-5 Step 1 through GS-10 Step 10. The NP-III pay band
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#17328522714301496-658: The Viking rocket , became chair. Encouraged by conversations between Richard W. Porter of General Electric and Alan T. Waterman , Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), Rosen on 27 November 1954, completed a report describing the potential value of launching an Earth satellite. The report was submitted to the NSF early in 1955. As part of planning for the International Geophysical Year (1957–1958),
1564-519: The Air Force had proposed using the Atlas launch vehicle , which did not yet exist. The Navy proposed designing a rocket system based on the Viking and Aerobee rocket systems. The Air Force proposal was not seriously considered, as Atlas development was years behind the other vehicles. Among other limitations, the Army submission focused on the launch vehicle, while a payload was assumed to become available from
1632-510: The Manhattan Project and guided the design of Oak Ridge National Laboratory 's Uranium enrichment plant. NRL is currently developing laser focusing techniques aimed at inertial confinement fusion technology. The static discharger seen on trailing edges of virtually all modern aircraft was originally developed by NRL scientists during World War II. After the war, the laboratory developed modern synthetic lubricants initially for use in
1700-519: The NRL campus, such as stone tools and ceramic shards, show that the site had been inhabited since the Late Archaic Period . Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore , granted the tract of land which includes the present NRL campus to William Middleton in 1663. It became part of the District of Columbia in 1791, and was purchased by Thomas Grafton Addison in 1795, who named the area Bellevue and built
1768-482: The NRL jumped from 396 in 1941 to 4400 in 1946, expenditures from $ 1.7 million to $ 13.7 million, the number of buildings from 23 to 67, and the number of projects from 200 to about 900. During World War II, scientific activities necessarily were concentrated almost entirely on applied research. Advances were made in radio , radar , and sonar . Countermeasures were devised. New lubricants were produced, as were antifouling paints, luminous identification tapes, and
1836-1097: The NRL was ranked No. 3 among all U.S. institutions holding nanotechnology -related patents, behind IBM and the University of California . Current areas of research at NRL include, for example: In 2014, the NRL was researching: armor for munitions in transport, high-powered lasers, remote explosives detection, spintronics, the dynamics of explosive gas mixtures, electromagnetic railgun technology, detection of hidden nuclear materials, graphene devices, high-power extremely high frequency (35–220 GHz) amplifiers, acoustic lensing, information-rich orbital coastline mapping, arctic weather forecasting, global aerosol analysis & prediction, high-density plasmas, millisecond pulsars , broadband laser data links, virtual mission operation centers, battery technology, photonic crystals, carbon nanotube electronics, electronic sensors, mechanical nano-resonators, solid-state chemical sensors, organic opto-electronics, neural-electronic interfaces and self-assembling nanostructures. The laboratory includes
1904-921: The Nanoscience Institute while still performing research for their respective divisions. Opened March 2012, the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR) is a 50,000 square foot facility that supports basic and applied research in autonomous systems. The facility supports a wide range of interdisciplinary basic and applied research in autonomous systems to include research in autonomous systems, intelligent autonomy, human-autonomous system interaction and collaboration, sensor systems, power and energy systems, networking and communications, and platforms. LASR provides unique facilities and simulated environmental high bays (littoral, desert, tropical, and forest) and instrumented reconfigurable high bay spaces to support integration of science and technology components into research prototype systems. The main campus of NRL
1972-472: The Navy's jet aircraft but subsequently adopted by the commercial jet industry. In the late 1960s, NRL researched low-temperature physics, achieving for the first time a temperature within one millionth of a degree of absolute zero in 1967. In 1985 two scientists at the laboratory, Herbert A. Hauptman and Jerome Karle , won the Nobel Prize for devising direct methods employing X-ray diffraction analysis in
2040-589: The Soviet R-7 rocket , the basis of the USSR's early ICBMs, and definitely military, as well as roughly 40 times larger than the Vanguard launcher. On March 17, 1958, the program successfully launched the Vanguard satellite TV-4. TV-4 achieved a stable orbit with an apogee of 3,969 kilometers (2,466 miles) and a perigee of 650 kilometers (400 miles). It was estimated that it would remain in orbit for at least 240 years, and it
2108-561: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2 , on November 3, 1957, then Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy directed the U.S. Army to use the Juno I and launch a satellite. On January 31, 1958, the U.S. Army launched the Explorer 1 satellite. With the launch of Sputnik 1 and 2 the previous concern, the right of satellite overflight, had become moot: those satellites were launched by an early version of
Tactical Satellite Program - Misplaced Pages Continue
2176-503: The Soviets might not object, and thus the precedent would be established that space was above national boundaries . Designated Project Vanguard, the program was placed under Navy management and DoD monitorship. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington was given overall responsibility, while initial funding came from the National Science Foundation . The director was John P. Hagen (1908–1990), an astronomer who in 1958 would become
2244-741: The Strontium Iodide Radiation Instrumentation (SIRI) and RAM Angle and Magnetic field sensor (RAMS) aboard STPSat-5, the Wide-field Imager for Solar PRobe (WISPR) aboard the Parker Solar Probe , and the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST) [formerly called Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST)]
2312-918: The Test Vehicle TV versions, was a much smaller and lighter launcher than the Redstone -based Jupiter-C / Juno 1 rocket which launched the Explorer satellites, or the immense R-7 that the Soviets used to launch the early Sputniks . The Vanguard 1 program introduced much of the technology that has since been applied in later U.S. satellite programs, from rocket launching to satellite tracking. For example, it validated in flight that solar cells could be used for several years to power radio transmitters. Vanguard's solar cells operated for about seven years, while conventional batteries used to power another on-board transmitter lasted only 20 days. Although Vanguard's solar-powered "voice" became silent in 1964, it continues to serve
2380-532: The U.S. publicly undertook to place an artificial satellite with a scientific experiment into orbit around the Earth. Proposals to do this were presented by the United States Air Force (USAF), the United States Army (USA), and the United States Navy (USN). The Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) under Dr. Wernher von Braun had suggested using a modified Redstone rocket (see: Juno I ) while
2448-585: The U.S. restarted the Explorer program , which had been proposed earlier by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA). Privately, however, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and President Dwight D. Eisenhower were aware of progress being made by the Soviets on Sputnik from secret spy plane imagery. Together with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), ABMA built Explorer 1 and launched it on 1 February 1958 ( UTC ). Before work
2516-484: The United States. Edison then agreed to serve as the head of the Naval Consulting Board that consisted of civilians who had achieved expertise. The focus of the Naval Consulting Board was as advisor to the U.S. Navy pertaining to science and technology. The board brought forward a plan to create a modern facility for the Navy. In 1916 Congress allocated $ 1.5 million for implementation. However, construction
2584-463: The assistant director of space flight development with the formation of NASA . After a delay due to the NRL changing the shape of the satellite from a conical shape, the initial 1.4 kg (3.1 lb) spherical Vanguard satellites were built at the NRL, and contained as their payload seven mercury cell batteries in a hermetically sealed container, two tracking radio transmitters, a temperature sensitive crystal, and six clusters of solar cells on
2652-413: The core findings of the study and decided to start an Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Initiative consisting of a series of experiments. TacSat-1 is the first experiment in this OFT initiative. The TacSat-1 experiment received go-ahead on 7 May 2003. The TacSat series of experimental spacecraft are designed to allow military commanders on a battlefield to request and obtain imagery and other data from
2720-411: The determination of crystal structures. Their methods form the basis for the computer packages used in pharmaceutical labs and research institutions worldwide for the analysis of more than 10,000 new substances each year. NRL has most recently published research on quantum computing, quantum dots, plasma shockwaves, thermodynamics of liquids, modeling of oil spills and other topics. NRL operates
2788-456: The distance from Earth to beyond the dwarf planet Pluto and halfway back. Original estimates had the orbit lasting for 2,000 years, but it was discovered that solar radiation pressure and atmospheric drag during high levels of solar activity produced significant perturbations in the perigee height of the satellite, which caused a significant decrease in its expected lifetime to about 240 years. Test vehicle launches The first Vanguard flight,
Tactical Satellite Program - Misplaced Pages Continue
2856-447: The first practical radar equipment built in the United States. They performed basic research, participating in the discovery and early exploration of the ionosphere . The NRL gradually worked towards its goal of becoming a broadly based research facility. By the beginning of World War II , five new divisions had been added: Physical Optics, Chemistry, Metallurgy, Mechanics and Electricity, and Internal Communications. Total employment at
2924-439: The first solar-powered satellite, the first surveillance satellite, the first meteorological satellite and the first GPS satellite. Project Vanguard , the first American satellite program, tasked NRL with the design, construction and launch of an artificial satellite, which was accomplished in 1958. As of 2024 , Vanguard I and its upper launch stage are still in orbit, making them the longest-lived man-made satellites. Vanguard II
2992-501: The full range of the physical sciences. Project Vanguard Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Navy Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into low Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex , Florida . In response to the launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957,
3060-565: The instigation of Thomas Edison , and is currently under the Office of Naval Research . As of 2016, NRL was a Navy Working Capital Fund activity, which means it is not a line-item in the US Federal Budget. Instead of direct funding from Congress, all costs, including overhead, were recovered through sponsor-funded research projects. NRL's research expenditures were approximately $ 1 billion per year. The Naval Research Laboratory conducts
3128-436: The laboratory often become mainstream applications without public awareness of the developer; an example in computer science is onion routing , the core principle of the anonymizing Tor software. Nuclear power research was initiated at NRL as early as 1939, six years before the first atomic bomb, for the purpose of powering submarines. Uranium enrichment methods sponsored by NRL over the course of World War II were adopted by
3196-897: The laboratory was divided into four research directorates, one financial directorate, and one executive directorate. All the directorates are headquartered in Washington, D.C. Many directorates have other facilities elsewhere, primarily at either the Stennis Space Center in Bay St Louis, Mississippi or in Monterey, California. Most NRL staff are civilians in the civil service , with a relatively small number of Navy enlisted personnel or officers. Virtually all NRL staff are US citizens and are not dual-nationals. In addition, there are some support contractors that work on-site at NRL. As of 31 December 2015, across all NRL locations, NRL had 2540 civilian employees (i.e., not including civilian contractors). On
3264-597: The launch of Vanguard III in 1959. Despite being overshadowed by Sputnik 1 , and having to overcome the widespread humiliation of its unsuccessful early attempts, the Vanguard Project eventually met its scientific objectives, providing a wealth of information on the size and shape of the Earth , density of air , temperature ranges, and micrometeorite impact. The Vanguard 1 radio continued to transmit until 1964, and tracking data obtained with this satellite revealed that Earth
3332-472: The month of September 1957, but because of delays this did not happen. On October 4, 1957, the Vanguard team learned of the launch of Sputnik 1 by the USSR while still working on a test vehicle (TV-2) designed to test the first stage of their launcher rocket. While demoralizing to the Vanguard team, Minitrack was successful in tracking Sputnik, a major success for NRL. At 11:44:35 a.m. on December 6, an attempt
3400-505: The postwar era determined to consolidate its wartime gains in science and technology and to preserve the working relationship between its armed forces and the scientific community. While the Navy was establishing the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in 1946 as a liaison with and supporter of basic and applied scientific research, the Navy encouraged NRL to broaden its scope since it was the Navy Department's corporate research laboratory. NRL
3468-784: The same date, there were 35 military officers on-board NRL and 58 enlisted on-board NRL, most of whom are with NRL's VXS-1 Scientific Flight Detachment, which is located at the Patuxent River ('Pax River') Naval Air Station (NAS) in southern Maryland. NRL has special authority to use a Pay-Band pay system instead of using the traditional General Schedule (GS) pay system for its civilian employees. This gives NRL more ability to pay employees based on performance and merit, rather than time-in-grade or some other seniority metric. There are several different pay-band groups at NRL, each being for different categories of civilian employees. As of 31 December 2015, NRL had 1615 civilian scientists/engineers in
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#17328522714303536-491: The scientific community. Ground-based optical tracking of the now-inert Vanguards continues to provide information about the effects of the Sun , Moon , and Atmosphere of Earth on satellite orbits. Vanguard 1 marked its 50th year in space on 17 March 2008. In the years following its launch, the small satellite has made more than 196,990 revolutions of the Earth and traveled 5.7 billion nautical miles (10.6 billion kilometres),
3604-684: The service life of Navy turbine engine parts and was adopted for Army helicopter parts as well. Fluorinated polyurethane coatings developed at NRL are used to line fuel storage tanks throughout the US Navy, reducing leakage and environmental and fuel contamination. The same polymer films are used in Los Angeles-class submarine radomes to repel water and enable radar operation soon after surfacing. Scientists at NRL frequently contribute theoretical and experimental research on novel materials, particularly magnetic materials and nanomaterials and thermoplastic . The first modern U.S. radar
3672-734: The success of surveillance satellites, the iconic parabolic antenna atop NRL's main headquarters in Washington, D.C. was part of Communication Moon Relay , a project that utilized signals bounced off the Moon both for long-distance communications research and surveillance of internal Soviet transmissions during the Cold War . NRL's spacecraft development program continues today with the TacSat-4 experimental tactical reconnaissance and communication satellite. In addition to spacecraft design, NRL designs and operates spaceborne research instruments and experiments, such as
3740-554: The surface of the sphere. The first satellite was called Vanguard TV3. NRL was also responsible for developing the Vanguard rocket launch vehicles through a contract to the Martin Company (which had built the Viking rockets), developing and installing the satellite tracking system, and designing, constructing, and testing the satellites. The tracking system was called Minitrack . The Minitrack stations, designed by NRL but subcontracted to
3808-498: The time was that the U.S. already had a covert satellite program underway, WS-117, which was developing the ability to launch spy satellites using USAF Thor IRBMs. The US government was concerned that the Soviets would object to military satellites overflying the Soviet Union as they had to various aircraft incursions and the balloons of the Genetrix project. The idea was that if a clearly "civilian" and "scientific" satellite went up first,
3876-649: The world record for most energetic rail gun projectile (33 MJ, 9.2 kWh) and fastest man-made projectile (2.24 million mph, 3.60 million km/h). NRL established the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence in 1981, which conducts basic and applied research in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, autonomy, and human-centered computing. Among its achievements are advances in cognitive architectures , human-robot interaction , and machine learning . As of 2017,
3944-631: Was completed, however, the Soviet Union launched a second satellite, Sputnik 2 , on 3 November 1957. Meanwhile, the spectacular failure of Vanguard TV3 on 6 December 1957, deepened American dismay over the country's position in the Space Race . On 17 March 1958, Vanguard 1 became the second artificial satellite successfully placed in a low Earth orbit by the United States. It was the first solar-powered satellite. Just 15.2 cm (6.0 in) in diameter and weighing 1.4 kg (3.1 lb), Vanguard 1
4012-477: Was delayed until 1920 because of the war and internal disagreements within the board. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, the first modern research institution created within the United States Navy, began operations at 1100 on 2 July 1923. The Laboratory's two original divisions – Radio and Sound – performed research in the fields of high-frequency radio and underwater sound propagation. They produced communications equipment, direction-finding devices, sonar sets, and
4080-438: Was described by then- Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as, "The grapefruit satellite". Vanguard 1, and the upper stage of its launch vehicle, are the oldest artificial satellites still in space, as Vanguard's predecessors, Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, and Explorer 1, have decayed from orbit. In the early 1950s, the American Rocket Society set up an ad hoc Committee on Space Flight, of which Milton W. Rosen , NRL project manager for
4148-451: Was designed and constructed at NRL. NRL pioneered the study of the sun Ultraviolet and X-Ray spectrum and continues to contribute to the field with satellites like Coriolis launched in 2003. NRL is also responsible for the Tactical Satellite Program with spacecraft launched in 2006, 2009 and 2011. The NRL designed the first satellite tracking system, Minitrack , which became the prototype for future satellite tracking networks. Prior to
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#17328522714304216-505: Was invented and developed at NRL in Washington, DC in 1922. By 1939, NRL installed the first operational radar aboard the USS New York, in time for radar to contribute to naval victories of the Coral Sea , Midway and Guadalcanal . NRL then further developed over-the-horizon radar as well as radar data displays. NRL's Radar Division continues important research & development contributing to US Navy and US Department of Defense capabilities. NRL's Tactical Electronic Warfare (TEW) Division
4284-429: Was made to launch TV-3. The Vanguard rocket rose about 1.2 m (4 ft) into the air when the engine lost thrust, and the rocket immediately sank back down to the launch pad and exploded. The payload nosecone detached and landed free of the exploding rocket, the small satellite's radio beacon still beeping. The satellite was too damaged for further use; it now resides in the National Air and Space Museum . After
4352-419: Was placed under the administrative oversight of ONR after ONR was created. NRL's Commanding Officer reports to the Navy's Chief of Naval Research (CNR) . The Chief of Naval Research leads the Office of Naval Research, which primarily is located in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia. The reorganization also caused a parallel shift of the Laboratory's emphasis to one of long-range basic and applied research in
4420-419: Was renamed Vanguard I, which in addition to its upper launch stage remains the oldest human-made satellite still in orbit. In late 1958, with responsibility for Project Vanguard having been transferred to NASA , the nucleus of the Goddard Space Flight Center was formed. After four failed launches, the program once again succeeded with SLV-4, renamed Vanguard II. After two more failures, the program ended with
4488-577: Was tested at NRL spacecraft testing facilities. NRL scientists have most recently contributed leading research to the study of novas and gamma ray bursts. The Marine Meteorology Division (Naval Research Lab–Monterey, NRL–MRY), located in Monterey, California , contributes to weather forecasting in the United States and around the world by publishing imagery from 18 weather satellites. Satellite images of severe weather (e.g. hurricanes and cyclones) that are used for advanced warning often originate from NRL–MRY, as seen in 2017 during Hurricane Harvey . NRL
4556-423: Was the first satellite to observe the Earth's cloud cover and therefore the first meteorological satellite. NRL's Galactic Radiation and Background I (GRAB I) was the first U.S. intelligence satellite , mapping out Soviet radar networks from space. The Global Positioning System (GPS) was invented at NRL and tested by NRL's Timation series of satellites. The first operational GPS satellite, Timation IV (NTS-II)
4624-410: Was voted #15 in the Best Places to Work PostDocs 2013 survey. The four research directorates within NRL were: The two support directorates were: In April 2001, in a departure from traditional working relationships between NRL scientists, the Institute for Nanoscience was established to conduct multidisciplinary research in the fields of materials, electronics and biology. Scientists may be part of
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