The art of space mission patches is now more than six decades old, dating to the Vostok 6 mission in 1963 that carried Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova into low-Earth orbit for nearly three days.

This afternoon, a Hulked-out version of the Delta IV rocket is supposed to launch a classified spy satellite into space for the National Reconnaissance Office. The NRO didn’t provide a lot of ...

The Delta IV Heavy is set to liftoff on its farewell flight from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:40 p.m. on a last NRO mission (NROL-70), but this could easily change ...

But while NASA patches tend to feature space ships and American flags, NRO prefers wizards, Vikings, teddy bears and the all-seeing eye. With these outlandish designs, a civilian would be ...

Since 1961, the National Reconnaissance Office has been launching satellites to keep an eye on things in the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and plenty of other countries. During the ...

The designer of National Reconnoissance Office mission patches has to be cackling gleefully over how popular the purple storm-lady of NROL-35 has become, ...

The NROL-10 patch for the launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 36A on Dec. 6, 2000. The NRO deciphered (PDF) the logo for us: "The mission was dedicated to Mr. Dan ...

Last year, the National Reconnaissance Office sparked a media frenzy when it released a spy satellite mission patch depicting an Earth-eating octopus. But, that’s not even close to the weirdest ...

SpaceX is all set to launch a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office this morning. The Falcon 9 is fueled and on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in ...