Marine Corps flew $69 million unlicensed imagery system over Kosovo without testing
By Miriam Adler ·
Congress and DoD managers were misled by incomplete cost data while the military rushed an unlicensed, under-tested imaging system into Kosovo.
The United States government attempted to build a high-resolution digital imaging system for the F/A-18D Hornet without owning the license to the software that ran it. According to a program description mirrored by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the military risked infringing on a manufacturer's data rights if they produced more than 12 prototype units. This was not a minor clerical oversight; it was a foundational gap in the acquisition of the Advanced Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance System (ATARS).
A Missing License
By 1993, the ATARS program was a textbook study in procurement collapse. Originally led by the U.S. Air Force for use in F-16C aircraft, the project was plagued by "years of delays and cost overruns." The Air Force and Martin Marietta eventually agreed to cease work in June 1993.
A review by the DOD Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that the program office had essentially operated in a vacuum of accountability. The OIG noted that "substantial savings could be achieved" if the common data link had been purchased directly from the manufacturer rather than through a prime contractor. More concerning was the lack of transparency regarding the bill. The program office failed to prepare complete life-cycle cost estimates and stopped reporting total program costs in the Defense Acquisition Executive Summaries and Selected Acquisition Reports.
This meant that Congress and DoD managers were making funding decisions based on incomplete data. The OIG report concluded that decision-makers likely lacked "adequate developmental and operational test performance information" before the program moved into low-rate initial production. The government was spending money on a system it had not fully tested and did not legally control.
Document imagery from irp.fas.org From the files: irp.fas.org
June 1993
Despite the OIG's warnings about staffing problems and contractual failures, the program did not die; it simply changed owners. Following Congressional direction in November 1993, the Navy took over, and by January 1994, the Marine Corps assumed management as the lead service. The objective was to fill the reconnaissance gap left by the retirement of the RF-4.
On November 30, 1995, McDonnell Douglas Aerospace was awarded a contract with a ceiling value of $69,000,000 to integrate ATARS into the F/A-18 aircraft. The work was split between Syosset, New York, and St. Louis. The procurement process then entered a cycle of "low-rate initial production" (LRIP) phases.
In December 1996, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition approved LRIP 1, procuring four suites for production verification and operational assessment. By March 1998, the second LRIP contract was awarded, this time to The Boeing Company, for six additional systems and four data link pods. The financial commitment continued to grow, with a February 1997 delivery order for three systems and associated conversion kits totaling $51.3 million.
Document imagery from irp.fas.org From the files: irp.fas.org
Operation Allied Force
There is a recurring pattern in military procurement where the urgency of a conflict is used to bypass the rigor of testing. For ATARS, that moment arrived in May 1999.
The FAS mirror records that the Marine Corps "released ATARS from testing" to provide an early operational capability during Operation Allied Force. The justification was a "vacuum" in the combatant commander's ability to meet tactical reconnaissance requirements. Two ATARS-capable aircraft were deployed to Hungary in the last week of May 1999.
This deployment happened while the system was still technically in the developmental pipeline. The records show a frantic push from the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China Lake to get the hardware into the field. The very system that the OIG had warned was under-tested and improperly managed was suddenly deemed essential for the mission over Kosovo.
While the official narrative focused on the successful deployment, the internal timeline suggests a system that was pushed into the sky before it was finished on the ground. Even after the Kosovo deployment, the system was still undergoing basic verification. It was not until June 16, 2000, that the record notes images data-linked from an ATARS-equipped F/A-18D during testing at China Lake were "clear and precise."
Whether the software license issues were ever fully resolved or if the "substantial savings" identified by the OIG were ever realized remains unaddressed in the summary. The record leaves us with the image of a $69 million system being rushed from a lab in Syosset to a theater of war in Hungary, filling a vacuum created by its own mismanagement.