Perhaps the NRO needs to take a second look at whats on the moon.

NASA and NRO to Team-Up on Lunar Spacecraft

Jeremy Singer
Space News Staff Writer
SPACE.com

The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and NASA (news - web sites) have agreed to cooperate on the development of a lunar spacecraft intended as the first shot in a series of robotic probes paving the way for future human exploration missions, according to an NRO official.

NASA and the NRO signed an agreement in November to work together on the payload for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter with the hope that the technology from that effort can be applied to a military satellite expected to be launched around the same timeframe, said Pedro Pete Rustan, director of advanced science and technology at the NRO.

The cooperation will focus on developing a miniature synthetic aperture radar sensor that the lunar probe will use to develop detailed maps of the Moon's surface, Rustan said in a Jan. 25 interview.

The lunar probe is expected to begin its mission, which will run over the course of a year, in 2008. The Pentagon (news - web sites) is planning to launch the fourth in a series of small spacecraft known as TacSat or Joint Warfighter spacecraft that year.

While the Pentagon has not finalized the payload for that spacecraft, the NRO hopes to place a small synthetic aperture sensor on the satellite, Rustan said.