You're thinking of the Mars Climate Orbiter, where the mistake was between NASA and Lockheed Martin, both American. Besides that, the issue wasn't the specific

You're thinking of the Mars Climate Orbiter, where the mistake was between NASA and Lockheed Martin, both American. Besides that, the issue wasn't the specific unit system used, it was NASA not testing to make sure their specifications were met before launch and then being too bureaucratic to react in time. The exact same issue could happen in metric with CGS vs MKS.