The Pentagon has required the software expertise of three major U.S. universities so as to help with the software on the U.S. weapon system, Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35.

Every fighter jet of the F-35 possesses more than 8 million lines of code, however, major software flaws have appeared, costing up to $398 billion to the program.

Software experts from the Johns Hopkins University, the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, and the Georgia Tech Research Institute are currently working on an independent technical assessment. Once the assessment is done, the Defense Department will plan new dates for the program milestones for the end of this month.

Indeed, the program will then start combat testing in a sophisticated simulator in order to see how the F-35 would do against some of the most advanced Russian and Chinese aircraft and air defenses. However, this might take months.

The Pentagon reports that around $66.4 billion will have been spent on the F-35’s engine program.