REQUIREMENT FOR COMMON GROUND STATIONS AND PAYLOADS FOR MANNED AND UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE SYSTEMS.

SEC. 144. REQUIREMENT FOR COMMON GROUND STATIONS AND PAYLOADS FOR MANNED AND UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE SYSTEMS.(a) Policy and Acquisition Strategy Required.—The Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shall establish a policy and an acquisition strategy for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance payloads and ground stations for manned and unmanned aerial vehicle systems. The policy and acquisition strategy shall be applicable throughout the Department of Defense and shall achieve integrated research, development, test, and evaluation, and procurement commonality.(b) Objectives.—The policy and acquisition strategy required by subsection (a) shall have the following objectives:(1) Procurement of common payloads by vehicle class, including—(A) signals intelligence;(B) electro optical;(C) synthetic aperture radar;(D) ground moving target indicator;(E) conventional explosive detection;(F) foliage penetrating radar;(G) laser designator;(H) chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive detection; and(I) national airspace operations avionics or sensors, or both.(2) Commonality of ground system architecture by vehicle class.(3) Common management of vehicle and payloads procurement.(4) Ground station interoperability standardization.(5) Maximum use of commercial standard hardware and interfaces.(6) Open architecture software.(7) Acquisition of technical data rights in accordance with section 2320 of title 10, United States Code.(8) Acquisition of vehicles, payloads, and ground stations through competitive procurement.(9) Common standards for exchange of data and metadata.(c) Affected Systems.—For the purposes of this section, the Secretary shall establish manned and unmanned aerial vehicle classes for all intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance programs of record based on factors such as vehicle weight, payload capacity, and mission.(d) Report.—Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the congressional defense committees, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives, and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate a report containing—122 STAT. 4383(1) the policy required by subsection (a); and(2) the acquisition strategy required by subsection (a).