Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia

Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia is a logistics and base-support installation on the atoll of Diego Garcia, in the British Indian Ocean Territory in the central Indian Ocean. The site is owned by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence and operated jointly by the Royal Navy and the United States Navy, with the American component under Commander, Navy Installations Command and the British element under British Forces British Indian Ocean Territories. Its stated mission is to provide logistic support to operational forces forward deployed to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf areas of responsibility. Camp Thunder Cove forms part of the facility and is run by US and British forces.

The principal afloat tenant is Maritime Prepositioning Ships Squadron Two, a force of deep-draft prepositioned logistics ships moored in the lagoon, which sortied to deliver Marine Corps equipment during the Gulf War and again for the Iraq War in 2003. Other tenants include the Military Sealift Command office, Fleet Logistics Center Diego Garcia, a detachment of Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station Far East, a Naval Mobile Construction Battalion detachment, the Mission Support Facility, a branch health clinic and the NAVFAC public works department. The Royal Navy presence is Naval Party 1022. Base operating support services are contracted to KBR; Serco operates the Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance installation, which tracks deep-space satellites.

The facility has a deep-draft wharf and an expanded anchorage and mooring area capable of taking aircraft carriers, together with separate Navy and Air Force ammunition areas and fuel storage. A concrete runway of 3,659 m and associated parking aprons support long-range bomber and tanker operations, and satellite communications antennas and radomes are installed on the atoll.

Construction ran from 1971 to 1976, carried out by Naval Mobile Construction Battalions 1, 40, 62, 71 and 133 and Amphibious Construction Battalion 2. Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia was established as the senior US Navy command on the island on 1 October 1977. A naval air facility was commissioned in 1981 and disestablished in 1987, its functions reverting to NSF Diego Garcia. Civilian contractors took over construction in 1982, completing most works, including the port facilities in 1985, by 1988.