S. 2506 — SkyFoundry Act of 2025

This section establishes the SkyFoundry Program to enable rapid development, testing, and scalable manufacture of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), with potential expansion to associated energetics and other autonomous systems. The Secretary of Defense shall administer the program through the Secretary of the Army as part of the Defense Industrial Resilience Consortium, leveraging other transaction authority under 10 U.S.C. §4022 and middle tier acquisition pathways under 10 U.S.C. §3602. The program includes (1) a government-owned innovation facility operated by U.S. Army Materiel Command in coordination with U.S. Army Futures Command as a research, development, and testing hub incorporating lessons from global conflicts; and (2) a government-owned production facility operated by U.S. Army Materiel Command capable of producing 1,000,000 small UAS annually once fully established. The Secretary may utilize existing Army depot facilities at a minimum of two sites (one each for the innovation and production facilities), renovate or construct notwithstanding 10 U.S.C. chapter 169, and select the production site based on criteria including 15,000 acres of land, approximately 10,000 buildable acres, approximately 8 million square feet of facilities, and location within 50 miles of four states. The Secretary may enter multiyear contracts for contractor-augmented hybrid teams and public-private partnerships; retain government purpose rights in jointly developed intellectual property; invoke Defense Production Act title III authorities (50 U.S.C. §4531 et seq.) for production prioritization and investments; and expedite or waive DoD regulations to accelerate program activities.