ARL conducts basic and applied research and technology as well as engineering development for scientific, industrial, and defense applications. Its mission is to serve as a center of research excellence in undersea science and technology. ARL is a Navy-sponsored research facility established in 1945 to advance the Navy's technology base through research and development.

The USNO mission is to determine the positions and motions of celestial objects, to provide astronomical data, to measure the Earth's rotation and to maintain the Master Clock for the United States.