DoD Selects Defense Equipment for Testing
March 11, 2005

The Department of Defense has selected 15 new-start projects to receive fiscal 2005 funding under the Defense Acquisition Challenge (DAC) program.

The DAC program provides opportunities for both innovators and DoD. For innovators, it means faster entry to the defense acquisition system. For the DoD program manager, it means increased technology insertions to improve systems.

Technological developments and operational needs are emerging faster than ever before. On the supply side, many of Americas companies generating technological innovations have found it difficult to break into the defense market, especially those classified as small and medium-sized businesses. In an effort to remedy the technology-to-programming lag, DAC provides opportunities for the increased introduction of innovative and cost-saving commercial technologies or products into existing DoD acquisition programs.

The DAC program is especially designed to give small and medium-sized companies the opportunity to introduce new technologies and inject innovation into current defense programs. To do so, DAC provides any person or activity within or outside the DoD the opportunity to propose alternatives, known as Challenge Proposals, to existing DoD programs that could result in improvements in performance, affordability, manufacturability, or operational capability of the systems acquired by that program. As a result of selecting, testing, and inserting the best of these production-ready technologies, the DAC Program ultimately expands the opportunities for emerging defense suppliers, widens the U.S. defense industrial base, and leverages unique innovations for the benefit of the warfighter.

Of the 15 DAC new-start projects for 2005, one is sponsored by Army, three by Navy, six by Air Force, and five by the U.S. Special Operations Command. A list of these new projects and additional DAC program information are available on the DAC Homepage on the World Wide Web at http://www.acq.osd.mil/cto/