The collective title for the government-owned radio astronomy facilities at various sites in the USA. NRAO was founded in 1956 and is administered by Associated Universities, Inc., a consortium of universities, on behalf of the US National Science Foundation. NRAO’s oldest site is at Green Bank, West Virginia. Its first major aerial there was the 26-m Tatel Telescope, which began operation in 1959. In 1964 it was joined by a second 26-m dish to form the Green Bank Interferometer, with a third 26-m dish being added in 1967. The Green Bank Interferometer ceased operations in 2000. Its main instruments currently in operation there are the 100 × 110-m Green Bank Telescope, opened in 2000; a 43-m equatorially mounted dish opened in 1965; and a 13.7-m dish for space VLBI and detecting solar radio bursts. NRAO also operates the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array and the Very Long Baseline Array, and is participating in the Atacama Large Millimeter Array project. NRAO’s headquarters are in Charlottesville, Virginia.

http://www.nrao.edu/ Official NRAO website.