Implications of DoD Acquisition Policy for Innovation: The Case of Operationally Responsive Space

This paper uses an innovation theory lens to assess the potential for operationally responsive space to increase the ability of government space acquisition to meet the emerging needs of Joint Combatant Commanders. Two core challenges of generating innovation in national security space are identified: 1) enabling bottom-up initiative in a monopsony market structure; and 2) fostering an entrepreneurial environment for both component and system level concept development within an increasingly risk-averse system. The current military acquisition system addresses these challenges through a two-tiered process which separates technology development from project-based acquisition. However, this method of separation is not a complete solution as: 1) it fails to value the importance of architectural innovation; 2) it creates a disaggregated knowledge base which exacerbates the difficulty of top-down specification and bottom-up integration; and 3) fails to generate an entrepreneurial supply-side spirit. The operationally responsive space paradigm has the potential to resolve parts of this issue by generating a more dynamic acquisition environment; however, it remains to be seen whether the required significant philosophical change can be achieved in practice.