nro

 GeoLITE is an advanced technology demonstration satellite with a laser communications experiment and an operational UHF communications mission. The GeoLITE program also employs streamlined acquisition and design-to-cost methodologies to complete the satellite development, integration and launch. The satellite is based on a modular bus design with multi-mission capabilities.
The satellite was designed and built in 3 1/2 years using streamlined program methodologies by TRW Space & Electronics, Redondo Beach, a subsidiary of TRW, Inc. for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
2001 May 18

STEX will test lightweight, high performance spacecraft technologies that have been proven in the laboratory aboard an experimental satellite. The experiment helps the NRO decide if the technology under testing is right, if it can be effectively incorporated into an operational spaceflight system, and if it can be operated in space. Its experiments could provide potential improvements in spacecraft technology for both military and civil satellites.

An Atlas IIAS rocket launched the MLV-11 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Dec. 5, 2000, from Space Launch Complex-36A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The mission was dedicated to Dan Potter, an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency assigned to the NRO and an advocate of the NRO Cub Run Partners in Education Program. Students at a local elementary school where he tutored submitted designs to be placed on the rocket’s payload fairing. The Ursa Major constellation, or the Great Bear, was selected as the theme for the contest.

National Reconnaisance Office
 

The Space Technology Experiment (STEX) is a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) program undertaken to meet a national
need to improve the performance of overhead intelligence collection systems while reducing costs.