Innovation bonus
First, let's admire the abbreviations for this OASIS+ task order:
DarkStar Intelligence, LLC, of Woodbridge, Virginia, protests the Department of the Air Force's issuance of a task order to Strategic Alliance Business Group (SABG), of Fairfax, Virginia, pursuant to fair opportunity proposal request (FOPR) No. FA2518-25-R-0033, to provide advisory and assistance services “for Space Electromagnetic Warfare (SEW), Space Domain Awareness (SDA), and Orbital Warfare (OW) forces to perform USSF [United States Space Force] missions.”
Now, for the innovation!
SABG's proposed innovative “Accelerated Ops Integration” and “Sensor Optimization Process” are designed to deliver significant advantages to the Government by prioritizing foreign/commercial sensors through an accelerated process [and] boosts analysis efficiency, yielding time, cost, and manpower savings.
Based on the innovation, the government gave SABG a "good" technical approach rating and made an award despite a $2 million price premium. Protestor argued that the solicitation never listed innovation as a formal evaluation factor. But GAO disagreed, noting that the "solicitation expressly provided for assessments of strengths, along with higher adjectival ratings, for proposals that exceeded the solicitation's stated requirements." Denied.