USA-247, also known as NRO Launch 39 or NROL-39, is an American reconnaissance satellite, operated by the National Reconnaissance Office and launched in December 2013. The USA-247 launch received a relatively high level of press coverage due to the mission's choice of logo, which depicts an octopus sitting astride the globe with the motto "Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach".[2] The logo was extensively criticized in light of the surveillance disclosures in July 2013.[3]
The mission's official logo was a gigantic octopus with its massive arms wrapped around the world, accompanied by the motto "Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach".[2] This image was widely deemed controversial in light of the 2013 Global surveillance disclosures.
NROL-39 is represented by the octopus, a versatile, adaptable, and highly intelligent creature. Emblematically, enemies of the United States can be reached no matter where they choose to hide. 'Nothing is beyond our reach' defines this mission and the value it brings to our nation and the warfighters it supports, who serve valiantly all over the globe, protecting our nation.
In a segment discussing mass surveillance entitled "That Thing They Said They're Not Doing? They're Totally Doing", American political commentator Jon Stewart commented on the logo:[11]
I feel like, at this point, our intelligence community is pretty much even owning the fact that they are getting nefarious. Last week, the National Reconnaissance Office launched this spy satellite into orbit; And the logo they chose for their spy rocket—this is real—a giant octopus sucking the face off North America.
The ODNI gave a more mundane explanation for the patch design in an internal magazine, stating that it originated from an engineering in-joke regarding a piece of cabling called an "octopus harness" that caused problems during testing for the satellite, leading the engineering team to joke that "the octopus harness had taken over the world."[12]
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
