The Secretary of Defense shall require that, whenever a new major defense acquisition program begins development, the defense acquisition authority responsible for that program shall develop a plan (to be known as a “sustainment plan”) for the existing system that the system under development is intended to replace. Any such sustainment plan shall provide for an appropriate level of budgeting for sustaining the existing system until the replacement system to be developed under the major defense acquisition program is fielded and assumes the majority of responsibility for the mission of the existing system. This section does not apply to a major defense acquisition that reaches initial operational capability before October 1, 2008.

In this section, the term “defense acquisition authority” means the Secretary of a military department or the commander of the United States Special Operations Command.

The milestone schedule for the development of the major defense acquisition program, including the scheduled dates for low-rate initial production, initial operational capability, full-rate production, and full operational capability and the date as of when the replacement system is scheduled to assume the majority of responsibility for the mission of the existing system.

the existing system is no longer relevant to the mission;

the mission has been eliminated;

the mission has been consolidated with another mission in such a manner that another existing system can adequately meet the mission requirements; or

the duration of time until the new system assumes the majority of responsibility for the existing system’s mission is sufficiently short so that mission availability, capability, interoperability, and force protection requirements are maintained.