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US Naval Research Laboratory |
| Naval Research Laboratory | |
|---|---|
 Emblem of the NRL |
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| Active | 1923-Present |
| Country | United States |
| Branch | Navy |
| Type | Research and development |
| Size | 2,474 civilian 120 military (2006) |
| Part of | Office of Naval Research |
| Commanders | |
| Commander | Capt Paul C. Stewart |
| Director of Research | Dr. John A. Montgomery |
The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps and conducts a broad program of scientific research and advanced development. NRL has existed since 1923, when it opened at the instigation of 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."1 In 1946, upon the establishment of the Office of Naval Research, NRL was placed under the direction of the Chief of Naval Research. NRL in its current form was created in 1992 after the Navy consolidated existing R&D facilities to form a single corporate laboratory. The NRL's budget was $842.3 million in 2006.citation needed
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NRL's published mission statement includes:2
NRL's accomplishments range from the development of gamma-ray radiography and radar to the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) and Dragon Eye, a robotic airborne sensor system. The laboratory first proposed a nuclear submarine in 1939, and developed over-the-horizon radar in the late 1950s. The details of GRAB 1, deployed by NRL as the nation's first intelligence satellite, were recently declassified. The laboratory is responsible for the identification, friend or foe (IFF) system. In 1985, two scientists at the laboratory, Herbert A. Hauptman and Jerome Karle, won the Nobel Prize for work in molecular structure analysis. The projects developed by the laboratory often become mainstream applications without public awareness of the developer; an example in computer science is onion routing. The Timation system, developed at NRL, provided the basis for the Global Positioning System.3
A few of the laboratory's many current specialties include plasma physics, space physics, materials science, and tactical electronic warfare.
The laboratory is divided into four research directorates, one funding directorate, and one executive directorate.
The Executive Directorate, located in Washington, D.C., serves as the command and control center of the Laboratory and is run by the Commander of the NRL.
In addition to management functions, the Directorate also manages the Institute for Nanoscience, founded in April 2001 as a multidisciplinary research at the intersections of the fields of materials, electronics and biology. The Scientific Development Squadron One (VXS-1), located at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, which provides airborne research facilities to NRL as well as other agencies of the US Government is also run out of the Executive Directorate.
The Business Operations Directorate, located in Washington, D.C., provides program management for the business programs which support the scientific directorates of NRL. It provides contracting, financial management and supply expertise to the scientific projects.
The Systems Directorate, headquartered in Washington, D.C. with locations in Chesapeake Beach, Tilghman Island, and Naval Air Station Patuxent River, is responsible for performing a range of activities from basic research through engineering development to expand the operational capabilities of the US Navy. There are four research divisions: Radar, Information Technology, Optical Sciences, and Tactical Electronic Warfare.
The Materials Science and Component Technology Directorate, headquartered in Washington, D.C. with additional locations at Naval Air Station Key West and Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, carries out a range of materials research with the aim of better understanding of the materials in order to develop improved and advanced materials for use by the US Navy. There are seven research divisions: Laboratory for the Structure of Matter, Chemistry, Material Science & Technology, Laboratory for Computational Physics and Fluid Dynamics, Plasma Physics, Electronics Science & Technology, and the Center for Biomolecular Science & Engineering. Additionally, the Directorate also operates the National Synchrotron Light Source at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and the test and training platform the ex-USS Shadwell in Alabama.
The Ocean and Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, headquartered in Washington, D.C. with additional locations at Chesapeake Beach, Maryland and Monterey, California, performs research in the fields of acoustics, remote sensing, oceanography, marine geosciences, marine meteorology, and space science.4 There are six research divisions: Acoustics, Remote Sensing, Oceanography, Marine Geosciences, Marine Meteorology, and Space Science. Additionally, the Oceanography division operates at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi as well as the Extreme-Ultraviolet and X-Ray Calibration Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.
The mission of the Center for Space Technology, headquartered in Washington, D.C. with additional sites at Pomonkey, Maryland, Blossom Point, Maryland and the Midway Research Center, Virginia, is to preserve and enhance a strong space technology base and provide expert assistance in the development and acquisition of space systems for naval missions.5 There are two research divisions: Space Systems Development and Spacecraft Engineering.
This article incorporates text from http://www.nrl.navy.mil, a public domain work of the United States Government.
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