The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) to support national security. Founded in 1996 as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), it changed names in 2003. It is a member of the United States Intelligence Community. NGA headquarters, also known as NGA Campus East or NCE, is located at Fort Belvoir North Area in Springfield, Virginia. At 2,300,000 square feet (210,000 m2), it is the third-largest government building in the Washington metropolitan area after the Pentagon and the Ronald Reagan Building. The agency also operates NGA Campus West, or NCW, in St. Louis, Missouri, and support and liaison offices worldwide. NGA also helps respond to natural and manmade disasters, helps with security planning for major events such as the Olympic Games, disseminates maritime safety information, and gathers data on climate change. The ninth and current director of the agency is Lieutenant General Michele Bredenkamp.
History U.S. mapping and charting efforts remained relatively unchanged until World War I, when aerial photography became a major contributor to battlefield intelligence. Using stereo viewers, photo-interpreters reviewed thousands of images. Many were of the same target at different angles and times, giving rise to modern imagery analysis and mapmaking.
Engineer Reproduction Plant (ERP) The Engineer Reproduction Plant was the Army Corps of Engineers's first attempt to centralize mapping production, printing, and distribution. It was located on the grounds of the Army War College in Washington, D.C. Previously, topographic mapping had primarily been 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 April 1, 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, compiling maps with minimal field work became increasingly possible. Out of this emerged AMS, which absorbed the existing ERP in May 1942. It was located at the Dalecarlia Site (including buildings now named for John C. Frémont and Charles H. Ruth) on MacArthur Blvd., just outside Washington, D.C., in Montgomery County, Maryland, and adjacent to the Dalecarlia Reservoir. AMS was designated as an Engineer field activity, effective July 1, 1942, by General Order 22, OCE, June 19, 1942. The Army Map Service 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 September 1, 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, the need for charts grew as airplane capacity and range improved. The Army Air Corps established its map unit, which was renamed ACP in 1943 and was located in St. Louis, Missouri. ACP was known as the U.S. Air Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Center (ACIC) from 1952 to 1972 (See DMAAC below).
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 (NPIC), a joint project of the CIA and DIA. NPIC was a component of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology (DDS&T), and its primary function was imagery analysis. NPIC became part of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (now NGA) in 1996.
Directors of NPIC
Cuban Missile Crisis
In 1962, NPIC analysts discovered that the Soviet Union was basing missiles in Cuba. Using images from U-2 overflights and film from canisters ejected from Corona satellites, They informed U.S. policymakers and influenced operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Their analysis garnered worldwide attention when the Kennedy Administration declassified and made public a portion of the images depicting the Soviet missiles on Cuban soil; Adlai Stevenson presented the images to the United Nations Security Council on October 25, 1962.
Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) The Defense Mapping Agency was created on January 1, 1972, to consolidate U.S. military mapping activities. DMA's "birth certificate", DoD Directive 5105.40, resulted from a formerly classified Presidential directive, "Organization and Management of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Community" (November 5, 1971), which directed the consolidation of mapping functions previously dispersed among the military services. DMA became operational on July 1, 1972, pursuant to General Order 3, DMA (June 16, 1972). On October 1, 1996, DMA was folded into the National Imagery and Mapping Agency – which later became NGA. DMA was first headquartered at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., then at 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 various mapping-related organizations of the military services. DMA included the following centers:
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