What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 3278 of PE 0207255N. This is the budget justification's own description of work that has not happened yet — the one thing no other level of the budget carries.
Continue to support development, implementation, and sustainment of test facilities, range, and lab test requirements. Support test execution to the Test and Evaluation Master Plan, support engineering events, and program management activities. Support activities in Modeling and Simulation development to include validation and verification. Continue stand up and utilization of the integrated test facilities in support of the EMD contract, to include test facility installation, maintenance, integration, procurement of support equipment, and accreditation activities. Provide Government engineering to support Contractor lab testing and ground/flight test planning, reporting, and execution of EDMs and SDTA test plans. This includes Air Vehicle Initial Checkout (AVICO) to verify functionality of Air Vehicle Systems; Freeplay and Rigidity (FP&R) to verify flight control surfaces; Ground Vibration Test (GVT) & Structural Mode Interaction (SMI) to verify structural response; MQ-25 and GCS Integrated Checkout (MAGIC) to evaluate the full integration of UMCS, MQ-25, and associated equipment prior to flight operations; and low and high speed taxi. This also includes flight test operations for guidance and control, Joint Precision Aircraft Landing System (JPALS) integration, electromagnetic environment effects, aerial refueling, shore based and at sea carrier suitability and integration, environmental chamber, cyber, fleet integration testing, software regression as required, logistics testing, and other ground/flight tests for all required airworthiness and mission systems certifications.
Increase from FY26 value of $70.696M (under PE 0605414N) by $10.663M to $81.359M in FY27 is due to EDMs 1, 2 and 4 and SDTA 1 entering ground/flight testing.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 0.0 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 0.0 |
| FY2027 | Request | 81.4 |
This activity is 18% of project 3278's FY2027 request and 16% of PE 0207255N's. In the request year the activities under a project sum to it exactly; in the current year they under-cover it in about 9% of cases, so an activity's delta can legitimately exceed its parent's and the two must not be compared row to row.
6 activities in project 3278
Every R-2A line of this project, largest FY2027 request first. Linked where the activity has enough of its own narrative to carry a page; the rest are shown in full on the project page.