

That satellite that was shot down last night was bad news, even before it got off the ground. The failed orbiter, USA-193, is widely believed to be part of a classified surveillance in space program known as Future Imagery Architecture, or FIA. And FIA is known as one of the biggest defense-technology boondoggles in recent history – "perhaps the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects," *The New York Times *once wrote.

FIA

was originally supposed to be a constellation of satellites using electro-optical and radar sensors to "gather clearer and more-frequent images – even at night and when there is a cloud cover – of enemy military activity than current satellites can,”

the Los Angeles Times notes. Initially scheduled to launch in 2005, FIA looked like it might become the “most expensive program in the history of the intelligence community,”

according to Globalsecurity.org.

When Boeing won the FIA contract, back in 1999, it was something of a coup. Lockheed was the country's big satellite builder, not Boeing. As the Los Angeles Times

observes, the company "had little experience manufacturing satellites with optical lenses that can take close-up pictures from space of objects on the ground.”

So it's not surprising that Boeing's technology just plain didn't work. "Boeing’s initial design for the optical system that was the heart of one of the two new satellite systems was so elaborate that optical engineers working on the project said it could not be built," *The New York Times *writes. "Engineers constructing a radar-imaging unit at the core of the other satellite could not initially produce the unusually strong radar signal that was planned."

A torrent of defective parts, like gyroscopes and electric cables, repeatedly stalled work. Even an elementary rule of spacecraft construction — never use tin because it deforms in space and can short-circuit electronic components — was violated by parts suppliers... “The F.I.A. contract was technically flawed and unexecutable the day it was signed,” said Robert J. Hermann, who ran the National

Reconnaissance Office from 1979 to 1981 and in 1996 led the panel that first recommended creation of a new satellite system. “Some top official should have thrown his badge on the table and screamed, ‘We can’t do this system at this price.’ No one did.”*

Boeing started burning through cash and dropping deadlines. “As early as 2002, the government had to reprogram about $625 million [and possibly as much as $900 million] from other intelligence programs … to get the program back on schedule,” Globalsecurity.org says. By 2005, an independent review board said propping up FIA "would require another $5 billion — raising the ante to $18 billion —

and five more years," *The New York Times *notes.

After spending $10 billion on FIA, including about $4 or $5 billion in cost overruns – the government finally had enough, taking the project away from Boeing, and giving it to Lockheed. In a final act of chuztpah, Boeing demanded $500 million in termination fees for ending the contract.

But, with Lockheed in the lead, the program hasn't exactly gone gangbusters. USA-193 was believed to be carrying the first of the FIA radar imaging payloads. But the satellite died shortly after it was lifted into orbit in December 2006. And the unhappy legacy of FIA continues.

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