The NRAO operates a complementary suite of powerful telescopes for exploring the Universe:

• Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT), the world’s most sensitive single-dish radio telescope.
• Very Large Array (VLA), an array of 27 radio telescopes that is among the most productive research tools in astronomy.
• Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), an array of 10 radio telescopes and the highest resolution astronomical telescope.

The NRAO is also building two new major facilities that will significantly enhance astronomers’ research capabilities and open new scientific frontiers:

• Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a partnership with Europe, Japan, and Chile that will be available to the U.S. and Canadian astronomical communities through the North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC).
• Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA), a partnership with Canada and Mexico, and a major step towards the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a next-generation, centimeter-wavelength telescope.

Detection of the radio waves emitted by astronomical objects demands technology and signal processing that push the state-of-the-art. The scientists and engineers at the NRAO Technology Center (NTC) perform much of the innovative research and development that yields the required instrumentation and processing advances.