Intelligence Community highlights from 2021

• Partnership for Public Service named the Intelligence Community one of the ‘Best Places to Work’ for the 12th consecutive year. The community scored high marks for work-life balance, leadership, and innovation.
• Multiple agencies celebrated significant milestones. The Defense Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office celebrated 60 years, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency celebrated 25 years, and the Space Force celebrated its second year!
• We prioritized efforts to recruit and retain a diverse workforce, promote innovation in our work, foster public and private partnerships with the IC, and promote strategic foresight within national security.

Keep scrolling for additional highlights:

1) NGA launched Moonshot Labs to serve as innovation hub in St. Louis

NGA opened Moonshot Labs in July 2021 to enhance collaboration across government, industry and academia. The unclassified space offers a preview of the unprecedented collaborative environment to come at the agency’s new NGA West campus when it opens in 2025.

2) NRO launch of NROL-82 emphasizes partnership, innovation, commitment to mission

The successful NROL-82 mission launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy from Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carried classified national security payload designed, built, and operated by the NRO to support its overhead reconnaissance mission. NROL-82 was the agency’s first launch this year, following six launches and 12 payloads delivered to orbit in 2020.

3) NIU becomes the Intelligence Community’s university

The National Intelligence University officially transitioned from the Defense Intelligence Agency to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on June 20, 2021. This shift marks an important milestone that honors NIU’s 59-year legacy stewarded by DIA and positions it as the Intelligence Community’s university.

4) NCSC debuts “Evolution of Espionage” digital exhibit

ODNI’s National Counterintelligence and Security Center released the first in its series, ‘Evolution of Espionage,’ on Intelligence.gov, featuring the Revolutionary War era.

5) NSA launches Quantum Information Science research center

National Security Agency’s Laboratory for Physical Sciences launched the LPS Qubit Collaboratory, a Quantum Information Science research center in support of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative. The LQC offers a mechanism for collaborative research between LPS and academia, industry, FFRDCs, and Government Laboratories.

6) CIA Makes Changes to Adapt to Future Challenges

CIA established a China Mission Center (CMC) to address the global challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China. “CMC will further strengthen our collective work on the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century, an increasingly adversarial Chinese government,” CIA Director Burns said. CIA also formed the new Transnational and Technology Mission Center, which will address global issues critical to US competitiveness — including new and emerging technologies, economic security, climate change, and global health.