''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) |
The 'National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency' ('NGA') is an
agency of the
United States Government with the primary mission of 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. In addition, NGA is a member agency of the United States
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 classified.
[2]
History
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.
Engineer Reproduction Plant (ERP)
The Engineer Reproduction Plant was the
Army Corps of Engineers' first attempt to centralize mapping production, printing and distribution at the Dalecarlia Site, located barely outside Washington D.C. in
Montgomery County,
Maryland. Prior to this time, topographic mapping was largely a function of individual field engineer units using field surveying techniques or copying existing or captured products. In addition, ERP assumed the "supervision and maintenance" of the
War Department Map Collection effective 1 April 1939.
Army Map Service (AMS) / U.S. Army Topographic Command (USATC)
With the advent of the
Second World War, aviation field surveys began giving way to
photogrammetry, photo interpretation and
geodesy. During wartime it became increasingly possible to compile maps with minimal field work. Out of this emerged AMS, which absorbed the existing ERP in May 1942. AMS was designated as an Engineer field activity, effective 1 July 1942, by General Order 22, OCE, 19 June 1942. AMS also combined many of the Army's remaining geographic intelligence organizations and the Engineer Technical Intelligence Division. AMS was redesignated the
U.S. Army Topographic Command (USATC) on 1 September 1968 and continued as an independent organization until 1972, when it was merged into the new Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) and redesignated as the DMA Topographic Center (DMATC) (see below).
Aeronautical Chart Plant (ACP)
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 ACP in 1943 and was located in
St. Louis, Missouri. ACP later became known as the
U.S. Air Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Center (ACIC) from 1952 to 1972. (See 'DMAAC' below)
Defense Mapping Agency (DMA)
The 'Defense Mapping Agency' was created on 1 January 1972 to consolidate all United States military mapping activities. DMA's "birth certificate," DoD Directive 5105.40, resulted from a (formerly) classified Presidential directive titled "Organization and Management of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Community" dated 5 November 1971 which, among other things, directed the consolidation of mapping functions previously dispersed among the military services.
[3] DMA became operational effective 1 July 1972, pursuant to General Order 3, DMA, 16 June 1972.
DMA's headquarters was initially located at the
United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Later on, DMA's headquarters moved to Falls Church, Virginia. Its mostly civilian workforce was concentrated at production sites in Bethesda, Maryland; Northern Virginia; and St. Louis, Missouri. DMA was formed from the Mapping, Charting, and Geodesy Division,
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and from various mapping-related organizations of the military services.
[4]
★ 'DMA Hydrographic Center (DMAHC)'
DMAHC was formed in 1972 when the Navy's Hydrographic Office split its two components: the charting component was attached to DMAHC, while the survey component moved to the Naval Oceanographic Office, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on the grounds of what is now the
NASA Stennis Space Center. DMAHC was responsible for creating terrestrial maps of coastal areas worldwide and hydrographic charts for DoD. DMAHC was initially located in Suitland, Maryland, but later relocated to Brookmount (Bethesda), Maryland.
★ 'DMA Topographic Center (DMATC)'
DMATC was located in Brookmount (Bethesda), Maryland. DMATC was responsible for creating Topographic maps worldwide for DoD. DMATC's location in Bethesda, Maryland is the current site of NGA's headquarters.
★ 'DMA Hydrographic/Topographic Center (DMAHTC)'
DMAHC and DMATC eventually merged to form DMAHTC, with offices in Brookmount (Bethesda), Maryland.
★ 'DMA Aerospace Center (DMAAC)'
DMAAC originated with the U.S. Air Force's Aeronautical Chart and Information Center (ACIC) and was located in St. Louis, Missouri.
National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC)
Shortly before leaving office in January 1961,
President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the creation of the 'National Photographic Interpretation Center', 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
[5], NPIC analysts developed the information necessary to inform US policymakers and influence operations during the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
National Imagery and Mapping Agency (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.
[6]
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 [7]. 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.
Commercial Imagery
Former director
Lt Gen James R. Clapper Jr.,
USAF, Retired'
★ ' 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.
[8] and
GeoEye.
[9]
Organization
Employees
The NGA work force is populated by professionals in fields such as
cartography,
geospatial analysis,
imagery analysis,
marine analysis, the physical sciences, geodesy, computer and telecommunication engineering, and photogrammetry.
NIMA / NGA Directors
★
1996–
1998 Rear Admiral Joseph J. (Jack) Dantone, Jr.,
USN Acting Director
★
1998–
2001 LTG James C. King,
US Army
★
2001–
2006 Lt Gen James R. Clapper Jr., USAF, Retired'
★ '
★
2006–
present Vice Admiral Robert B. Murrett,
USN
'
★ ' 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 DIA in 1995. Lt. Gen. Clapper is, so far, the only civilian to have headed NIMA / NGA.
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
[5].
★ 'Olympic support' - In
2002, NIMA partnered with Federal organizations to provide geospatial assistance to the
2002 Winter Olympics in
Utah . 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
[11]. 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
[12]. 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.
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.
★ 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 databases.
[13]
References
1. ESA: Different Approaches taken with respect to Geo Information Sector in Europe and the United States
2. CNN.com - Secretive map agency opens its doors - Dec. 13, 2002
3. Memorandum, Subject: Organization and Management of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Community
4. Guide to Federal Records: Records of the Defense Mapping Agency [DMA]
5. NGA History
6. Report of the Independent Commission on NIMA - December 2000
7. NGA: September-October 2003 State of the Agency
8. National Defense Magazine: Military Imagery Agency to Be Renamed
9. ORBIMAGE Selected as NGA's Second NextView Provider
10. NGA History
11. Geospatial Intelligence Aids Hurricane Recovery Efforts
12. Microsoft and NGA Announce Strategic Alliance
13. DCI Statement on the Belgrade Chinese Embassy Bombing to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Open Hearing, 22 July 1999
See Also
★
Geographic Information System (GIS)
★
Cartography
★
Remote sensing
★
Satellite imagery
★
Orthophoto
★
Imagery Intelligence
External links
★
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - official website
★
★
GEOnet Names Server (GNS) - Database of foreign geographic feature names. Worldwide coverage excluding the United States and Antarctica, containing approximately 3.93 million features with 5.45 million names, and their coordinates.
★
★
NGA Earth - Formerly KatrinaImagery.org (Hurricane Crisis Imagery)
★
Center for Geospatial Intelligence : University of Missouri - Columbia research center focused on GeoINT
★
U.S. Intelligence Community: NGA
★
Commission Report on the National Imagery and Mapping Agency
★
''GeoIntelligence'': A trade publication covering the uses of spatial technologies for national defense and homeland security by organizations such as NGA.
★
Secretive map agency opens its doors David Ensor
★
DMA Receives Hammer Award, 26 January 1996
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