President Donald Trump has nominated Roger Mason, a defense and intelligence industry executive, to lead the National Reconnaissance Office. If confirmed by the Senate, Mason would replace Christopher Scolese, who has run the agency since August 2019.
The NRO, with a budget believed to be in the tens of billions of dollars annually, builds and operates the nation's spy satellites, supplying imagery and signals intelligence to military commanders and policymakers. It sits at the center of U.S. space-based surveillance, working closely with the U.S. Space Force and an expanding set of commercial providers.
Mason is currently chief growth officer at V2X, a publicly traded firm based in Reston, Virginia, that provides logistics and technical services to the Pentagon and intelligence community. His background also includes senior executive roles at Parsons Corporation and Peraton, both of which have deep ties to national security and intelligence programs.
Under Scolese, the NRO has moved to rely more heavily on commercial launch and satellite technology, aiming to reduce costs and deploy systems more quickly. That approach has been paired with a shift toward building a large constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit, including a major contract with SpaceX.
The scale of that effort has accelerated sharply, with the NRO launching more than 200 satellites in roughly the past two years.