1 Software Sustainment Challenges in Defense Acquisition

It is not news that there are problems with acquisition of defense systems. Over the past ten years, there has been over 400 billion dollars of growth in acquisition costs, money which could have been used to provide additional capability to the warfighter. DoD has several initiatives to address this chronic problem. Software-intensive systems, however, pose some unique considerations, especially in the transition to the system design and development, and sustainment phases. This paper outlines some of the characteristics of software intensive systems in the context of DoD’s acquisition reform initiatives, and provides recommendations to better address software sustainment in defense systems. I