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56-543: The United States Naval Research Laboratory ( NRL ) 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

112-419: A 25-km spatial resolution . Secondary measurements are Sea surface temperature , soil moisture, rain rate, ice and snow characteristics and water vapor . The Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) is an instrument intended to detect disturbances in the solar wind by means of imaging scattered light from the free electrons in the plasma of the solar wind. To do this three CCD cameras observe sections of

168-616: 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

224-547: A desire to reinvigorate the scientific discipline by robust research in order to extract "pure" science from such broad categorisation. This began with research conducted autonomously away from public utility and governmental supervision. Enclaves for industrial investigations became established. These included the Rockefeller Institute , Carnegie Institution of Washington and the Institute for Advanced Study . Research

280-657: 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

336-610: 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

392-584: 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,

448-592: A separate academy in which graduates could pursue further scientific research. It was the first institution of its kind in Europe to conduct scientific research within the structure of a university. The St Petersburg Academy was established by decree on 28 January 1724. At the European level, there are now several government-funded institutions such as the European Space Agency (ESA), the nuclear research centre CERN ,

504-582: 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

560-688: 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,

616-549: Is a joint Integrated Program Office / Department of Defense demonstration project, intended to measure ocean surface wind speed and wind direction from space using a polarimetric radiometer. WINDSAT was developed and managed by the Space Test Program at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico, designed for a three-year lifetime . It is primarily designed to measure ocean surface wind direction ( nonprecipitating conditions ) with

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672-666: 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

728-511: 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

784-574: 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

840-889: 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

896-563: 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

952-657: Is one of the first US government scientific R&D laboratories, having opened in 1923 at 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

1008-435: 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

1064-484: 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

1120-498: 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

1176-509: The Académie royale des sciences in 1666 which came after private academic assemblies had been created earlier in the seventeenth century to foster research. In the early 18th century, Peter the Great established an educational-research institute to be built in his newly created imperial capital, St Petersburg . His plan combined provisions for linguistic, philosophical and scientific instruction with

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1232-749: The European Southern Observatory (ESO) (Grenoble), the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) (Grenoble), EUMETSAT , the Italian-European Sistema Trieste with, among others, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics and the research complex Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, the biology project EMBL, and the fusion project ITER which in addition to technical developments has a strong research focus. Research institutes came to emerge at

1288-581: 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

1344-506: 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

1400-519: 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

1456-482: 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

1512-1093: 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

1568-917: 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

1624-471: 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

1680-739: 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)]

1736-483: 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

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1792-417: The beginning of the twentieth century. In 1900, at least in Europe and the United States, the scientific profession had only evolved so far as to include the theoretical implications of science and not its application. Research scientists had yet to establish a leadership in expertise. Outside scientific circles it was generally assumed that a person in an occupation related to the sciences carried out work which

1848-403: 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

1904-446: 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

1960-438: 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

2016-517: The fore in driving specific research developments. After the Second World War and the atom bomb specific research threads were followed: environmental pollution and national defence . Coriolis (satellite) The Coriolis satellite is a Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Earth and space observation satellite launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base , on January 6, 2003, at 14:19 GMT . WINDSAT

2072-556: The full range of the physical sciences. Research laboratory In the early medieval period, several astronomical observatories were built in the Islamic world. The first of these was the 9th-century Baghdad observatory built during the time of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun , though the most famous were the 13th-century Maragheh observatory , and the 15th-century Ulugh Beg Observatory . The Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics

2128-435: 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

2184-896: 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

2240-505: 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

2296-781: 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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2352-668: 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

2408-734: 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

2464-646: 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,

2520-568: Was Tycho Brahe 's Uraniborg complex on the island of Hven , a 16th-century astronomical laboratory set up to make highly accurate measurements of the stars. In the United States there are numerous notable research institutes including Bell Labs , Xerox Parc , The Scripps Research Institute , Beckman Institute , RTI International , and SRI International . Hughes Aircraft used a research institute structure for its organizational model. Thomas Edison , dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park",

2576-537: Was a school of mathematics and astronomy founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama in Kerala , India . The school flourished between the 14th and 16th centuries and the original discoveries of the school seems to have ended with Narayana Bhattathiri (1559–1632). In attempting to solve astronomical problems, the Kerala school independently discovered a number of important mathematical concepts. The earliest research institute in Europe

2632-400: Was advanced in both theory and application. This was aided by substantial private donation. As of 2006, there were over 14,000 research centres in the United States. The expansion of universities into the faculty of research fed into these developments as mass education produced mass scientific communities . A growing public consciousness of scientific research brought public perception to

2688-537: 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

2744-518: 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

2800-609: 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

2856-437: Was necessarily "scientific" and that the skill of the scientist did not hold any more merit than the skill of a labourer. A philosophical position on science was not thought by all researchers to be intellectually superior to applied methods. However any research on scientific application was limited by comparison. A loose definition attributed all naturally occurring phenomena to "science". The growth of scientific study stimulated

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2912-609: Was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention in the late 1800s, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. From the throes of the Scientific Revolution came the 17th century scientific academy. In London, the Royal Society was founded in 1660, and in France Louis XIV founded

2968-519: 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

3024-619: 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

3080-423: 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)

3136-513: 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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