Beyond Repair?

The article focuses on the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) which rocked the aerospace industry by choosing Boeing Co. to build its next generation of secret imaging satellites, bypassing Lockheed Martin Corp., the decades-long incumbent on the program in 1999. The new Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) of electro-optical and radar-imaging satellites was based on simplicity. But FIA has failed to escape the dysfunction plaguing most government satellite programs. As Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte embarks on his first review of technical programs, the system's price tag has grown from $6 billion to at least $15 billion.