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National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

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The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a federal agency of the United States government responsible for the tasking (collection), exploitation (analysis), and dissemination (distribution) of Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT). NGA is part of the United States 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.

With its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, it operates major facilities in the northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, Missouri, areas as well as support and liaison offices worldwide.

NGA's motto is to "Know the Earth, Show the Way." NGA's primary mission is to provide "timely, relevant, and accurate Geospatial Intelligence in support of national security."

There are legal restrictions to the use of the seal.

Contents

History

NGA was formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). NIMA was established on October 1, 1996, by Title XI of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997 (Public Law 104-201, signed 23 September 1996). NIMA brought together the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA), the Central Imagery Office (CIO), and the Defense Dissemination Program Office (DDPO) in their entirety, and the mission and functions of the Central Intelligence Agency's National Photographic Interpretation Center (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.

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, representing a fundamental step toward achieving the DoD vision of "dominant battle space awareness." It was created to exploit the potential of enhanced collection systems, digital processing technology and the prospective expansion in commercial imagery than its separate predecessor organizations.

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 (NGA 2003). 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.

Staff

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.

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.

Past and present GEOINT 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 (NGA n.d.)."

Olympic support

"In 2002, NIMA partnered with Federal organizations to provide geospatial assistance to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah (NGA n.d.)." NGA also helped support the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece."

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" (NGA 2005). 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 (Microsoft 2006). 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.

References

External links

 

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