National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

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National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

NGA seal - there are legal restrictions to the use of the seal
Established: 1 October 1996
Director: Vice Admiral Robert B. Murrett, USN
Motto: "Know the Earth, Show the Way."
Budget: Est. 1.5 billion dollars (1998)[1]
Employees: Est. 9000 (1998) [1]

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a federal agency of the United States Government whose primary function is collection, analysis, and distribution of Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national security. NGA was formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) and is part of the Department of Defense (DoD), but also has responsibilities to customers outside the DoD. NGA is also a member agency of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

NGA's headquarters are located in Bethesda, Maryland and operates major facilities in the northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, Missouri areas as well as support and liaison offices worldwide. Its budget and number of employees are secret.[2]

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Aeronautical Chart Plant

US mapping and charting efforts remained relatively unchanged until World War I, when aerial photography became a major contributor to battlefield intelligence. Using stereo viewers, photointerpreters reviewed thousands of images. Many of these were of the same target at different angles and times, giving rise to what became modern imagery analysis and mapmaking. After the war, as airplane capacity and range improved, the need for charts grew. The Army Air Corps established its Map Unit, which was renamed the Aeronautical Chart Plant in 1943 and was located in St. Louis, Missouri.

[edit] NPIC

Shortly before leaving office in January 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the creation of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), combining Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Army, Navy, and Air Force assets to solve national intelligence problems. NPIC was a component of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology (DDS&T). It was NPIC that first identified the Soviet Union’s basing of missiles in Cuba in 1962, thus establishing the proud tradition of imagery analysis. By exploiting images from U-2 overflights and film from canisters ejected by orbiting Corona satellites[3], NPIC analysts developed the information necessary to inform US policymakers and influence operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

===ACIC=== Formerly the US AIr Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Service. Later renamed DMAAC Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center DMAAC. Located in St. Louis, MO. Now part of NGA.

ragoley===DMAHTC=== The Defense Mapping Agency, Hydrographic/Topographic Center was formed around 1976 when the Navy's Hydrographic Office split its two components. The charting component was attached to the Defence Mapping Agency, Topographic Center (DMATC) to form DMAHTC. The survey component became the Naval Oceanographic Office and moved from Suitland, Maryland to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to the grounds of what is now the Stennis Space Center. DMAHTC was responsible for creating the terrestial and hydrographic maps and charts for the Department of Defense.

[edit] DMAAC

[edit] DMA

The Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) was created in 1972 to consolidate all United States military mapping activities. Its mostly civilian workforce was concentrated at production sites in Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri.

[edit] NIMA

NIMA was established on October 1, 1996, by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997. The creation of NIMA followed more than a year of study, debate and planning by the defense, intelligence and policy-making communities (as well as the Congress) and continuing consultations with customer organizations. The creation of NIMA centralized responsibility for imagery and mapping.

NIMA brought together the DMA, the Central Imagery Office (CIO), and the Defense Dissemination Program Office (DDPO) in their entirety, and the mission and functions of the NPIC. Also merged into NIMA were the imagery exploitation, dissemination and processing elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office.

NIMA's creation was clouded by the natural reluctance of cultures to merge and the fear that their respective missions -- mapping in support of defense activities versus intelligence production, principally in support of national policymakers --would be subordinated, each to the other.[4]

[edit] NGA

With the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 (Public Law 108-136, signed 24 November 2003), NIMA was renamed NGA, to better reflect its primary mission in the area of GEOINT [5]. As a part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, all major Washington, D.C.-area NGA facilities, including those in Bethesda, MD, Reston, VA, and Washington, D.C., will eventually be consolidated at Fort Belvoir, VA. NGA facilities in St. Louis were not affected by the 2005 BRAC process.

[edit] Commercial Imagery

Former director Lt. Gen. James Clapper (USAF Ret) changed NGA's mission to a focus on surveillance instead of reconnaissance, and moved away from government-produced imagery (like that produced by the National Reconnaissance Office) to commercial imagery such as DigitalGlobe.[6] and GeoEye.[7]

[edit] Organization

[edit] Employees

The NGA work force is populated by professionals in fields such as cartography, imagery analysis, marine analysis, the physical sciences, geodesy, computer and telecommunication engineering, and photogrammetry.

[edit] NIMA / NGA Directors

* Although Lt. Gen. Clapper preferred the use of his military rank, he was in fact a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service (DISES) during his term as Director of NIMA / NGA, as he had previously retired from active duty as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1995. Lt. Gen. Clapper is, so far, the only civilian to have headed NIMA / NGA.

[edit] Activities

  • 9/11 aftermath - After the September 11, 2001 attacks, NIMA partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey to survey the World Trade Center site and determine the extent of the destruction [3].
  • Olympic support - In 2002, NIMA partnered with Federal organizations to provide geospatial assistance to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah [3]. NGA also helped support the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.
  • Space Shuttle Columbia disaster - While the Space Shuttle Columbia was in orbit during STS-107, NIMA purportedly offered to image the shuttle and its suspected damage from falling debris during takeoff. NASA declined this offer, but has since forged an interagency agreement with NGA to collect imagery for all future space shuttle flights.
  • Hurricane Katrina - The NGA supports Hurricane Katrina relief efforts by "providing geospatial information about the affected areas based on imagery from commercial and U.S. government satellites, and from airborne platforms, to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other government agencies[8]. NGA's Earth website is a central source of these efforts.
  • Microsoft partnership - Microsoft Corp. and the NGA have signed a Letter of Understanding to advance the design and delivery of geospatial information applications to customers[9]. NGA will continue to use the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform (as it did for Katrina relief) to provide geospatial support for humanitarian, peacekeeping and national-security efforts. The Virtual Earth platform is an integrated set of powerful online mapping and search services that deliver imagery through easy-to-program APIs.

[edit] Controversies

NIMA / NGA has been involved in several controversies.

  • India tested a nuclear weapon in 1998 that took the United States by surprise because too few photo analysts were assigned to watch the suspected test site closely enough.[2]
  • In 1999, NIMA provided NATO war planners with incorrect maps which did not reflect that the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade had moved locations, which some have argued was the cause of the accidental NATO Bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. CIA countered this criticism by saying this overstates the importance of the map itself in the analytic process. Maps of urban areas will be out of date the day after they are published but what is important is having accurate data bases.[10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b ESA: Different Approaches taken with respect to Geo Information Sector in Europe and the United States
  2. ^ a b CNN.com - Secretive map agency opens its doors - Dec. 13, 2002
  3. ^ a b c NGA History
  4. ^ Report of the Independent Commission on NIMA - December 2000
  5. ^ NGA: September-October 2003 State of the Agency
  6. ^ National Defense Magazine: Military Imagery Agency to Be Renamed
  7. ^ ORBIMAGE Selected as NGA's Second NextView Provider
  8. ^ Geospatial Intelligence Aids Hurricane Recovery Efforts
  9. ^ Microsoft and NGA Announce Strategic Alliance
  10. ^ DCI Statement on the Belgrade Chinese Embassy Bombing to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Open Hearing, 22 July 1999

[edit] See Also

[edit] External links

Portal:Military of the United States
 Military of the United States Portal


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