FAS Succeeds in Getting NGA To Release Unclassified Paper on History of Remote Sensing Satellites

It took three years, but Steve Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) finally succeeded in liberating a very useful history of U.S. civilian remote sensing satellites written by Jim Vedda for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

Vedda, a veteran space policy analyst who is currently a Senior Policy Analyst for the Aerospace Corporation, wrote the paper in 2009.  Entitled U.S. National Security and Economic Interests in Remote Sensing:  The Evolution of Civil and Commercial Policy, it traces the history of U.S. policy regarding civil and commercial remote sensing satellites from 1960 through 2008.

Aftergood filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the report in 2009 and received a copy today.  The report can be downloaded from the FAS website.

What took NGA three years to release the report remains a mystery.