US HB5086

Secretary of Defense must establish the "SkyFoundry Program" to enable rapid development, testing, and scalable manufacture of small unmanned aircraft systems (drones), administered through the Secretary of the Army as part of the Defense Industrial Resilience Consortium

Program requires two Government-owned facilities: an innovation facility operated by Army Materiel Command for R&D and testing, and a production facility capable of manufacturing 1,000,000 small unmanned aircraft systems annually once fully established

Production facility must be located at an existing Army Depot with at least 15,000 acres of land, approximately 10,000 buildable acres, 8,000,000 square feet of facilities, and located within 50 miles of four states

Secretary may use alternative acquisition mechanisms including other transaction authority and middle tier acquisition pathways, enter multiyear contracts with private contractors, and waive or modify DOD regulatory requirements to expedite development

Defense Production Act authorities must be used to prioritize domestic industrial base capacity for small drones and autonomous systems, with the U.S. retaining intellectual property rights for technologies developed under the program