Sec. 1606. Use of small- and medium-size buses for strategic and tactical satellite payloads
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Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, shall provide to the Committees on Armed Services of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and to any other appropriate congressional committee upon request, a briefing on the risks, benefits, and cost savings with respect to using small- and medium-size buses for strategic and tactical satellite payloads for protected satellite communications programs and next-generation overhead persistent infrared systems. The briefing provided under paragraph
(1)shall address the following: Increasing component and subcomponent commonality for power regulation, solar arrays, battery technology, thermal control, and avionics. The security of the supply chain, including a strategy to mitigate risk in such supply chain. With respect to each analysis of alternatives of new space vehicles relating to a program described in paragraph (2), the Director for Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation shall certify to the appropriate congressional committees that the analysis— includes materiel solutions for using small- and medium-size buses; and considers the relevant operational benefits and potential cost savings of using small-, medium-, and large-size buses. The programs described in this paragraph are the programs of the Department of Defense relating to any of the following: Protected satellite communications. Next-generation overhead persistent infrared systems. Space-based environmental monitoring. Not later than 240 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Air Force, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shall jointly provide to the Committees on Armed Services of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and to any other appropriate congressional committee upon request, a briefing on alternative space-based architectures for the programs described in subsection (b)(2) using small-, medium-, and large-size buses. In this section, the term appropriate congressional committees means the following: The congressional defense committees. The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate.