TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Failed Spy Satellite Program May Reveal Contract Issues

ADVERTISEMENT

By PHILIP TAUBMAN, The New York Times

Published: November 11, 2007

By May 2002, the government's effort to build a technologically audacious new generation of spy satellites was foundering.

The contractor building the satellites, Boeing, was still giving Washington reassuring progress reports. But the program was threatening to outstrip its $5 billion budget, and pivotal parts of the design seemed increasingly unworkable. Peter B. Teets, the new head of the nation's spy satellite agency, appointed a panel of experts to examine the secret project.

The panel reported that the project, called Future Imagery Architecture, was far behind schedule and would most likely cost $2 billion to $3 billion more than planned, according to records from the satellite agency, the National Reconnaissance Office.

Even so, the experts recommended pressing on. Just months after the Sept. 11 attacks, and with the new satellites promising improved, more frequent images of foreign threats, they advised Teets to seek an infusion of $700 million.

It took two more years, several more review panels and billions more dollars before the government finally killed the project - perhaps the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects.

The Future Imagery project is one of several satellite programs to break down in recent years, leaving the United States with outdated imaging technology. But perhaps more striking is that the multiple failures that led to the program's demise reveal weaknesses in the government's ability to manage complex contracts.

An investigation by The New York Times found the agency put the Future Imagery contract out for bid in 1998 despite an assessment that questioned whether its technological goals were attainable. By the time the project was killed in September 2005, a year after the first satellite was to have been delivered, cost estimates ran as high as $18 billion.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT