This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on United States Naval Research Laboratory is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
| Naval Research Laboratory | |
|---|---|
 Emblem of the NRL |
|
| 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
Contents |
Mission Statement
NRL's published mission statement includes:2
- Conducting a broadly based multidisciplinary program of scientific research and advanced technological development;
- Maritime applications of new and improved materials, techniques, equipment, systems and ocean, atmospheric, and space sciences and related technologies.
Research
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.
Organization
The laboratory is divided into four research directorates, one funding directorate, and one executive directorate.
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.
Business Operations 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.
Systems Directorate
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.
Materials Science and Component Technology Directorate
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.
Ocean and Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate
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.
Naval Center for Space Technology
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.
See also
- History of radar
- Nike laser
- Interactive Scenario Builder
- NRLMSISE-00
- SIMDIS
- Clementine spacecraft
- National research libraries alliance
References
This article incorporates text from http://www.nrl.navy.mil, a public domain work of the United States Government.
- ^ "Big Laboratory for Navy Planned" (PDF). NY Times (1915-10-08). Retrieved on 2008-07-05.
- ^ US Navy. "NRL - Mission". NRL. Retrieved on 2008-07-22.
- ^ Easton, Richard (2006-05-22). "The Space Review: Who invented the Global Positioning System?". The Space Review. Retrieved on 2008-07-26.
- ^ US Navy. "NRL - Ocean & Atmospheric Science Directorate". NRL. Retrieved on 2008-07-20.
- ^ US Navy. "NRL - Naval Center for Space Technology". NRL. Retrieved on 2008-07-20.
External links
- U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
- The Little Book of Big Achievements (PDF)
- Pushing the Horizon: 75 years of High Stakes Science and Technology at the Naval Research Laboratory (PDF)
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 7 November 2008, at 00:09.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "United States Naval Research Laboratory".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.