R-2A Activity · President's Budget PB2027

Common SIGINT Development

FY2027 Request
$37.9M
▲ 25% vs FY2026
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This activity requests $37.9M in FY2027, 69% of project 675183, up 25% on FY2026. The R-2A exhibit describes it across FY2026–FY2027, including what the FY2027 money is planned to buy.

FY2027 Request
$37.9M
▲ 25% vs FY2026
FY2026 Enacted
$30.3M
▼ 0.6% vs FY2025
FY2025 Actual
$30.5M
Prior year
Planned work

What the FY2027 request buys

Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 675183 of PE 0304260F. 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.

FY2027 planned work

- Will continue to develop new signals capabilities and enhancements. Details are classified. - Will continue to enhance OATL infrastructure to support future SIGINT sensor development and testing. - Will pursue new capability development and risk reduction and necessary follow-on Phoenix OA support to CI-6/SP-5 Family of Systems, building upon integration following assessments and demonstration efforts conducted in FY 2024, FY 2025, and FY 2026. - Will deliver bi-annual releases of Big Iron-compliant Phoenix OA Software to multiple end users (CI-6/SP-5/Others), explore new third-party signals of interest and integrate when required, and assess single-ship/multi-ship geolocation abilities. Details are classified. - Will pursue expanding Phoenix OA software outside the current end users (CI-6/SP-5) and on to new advanced SIGINT sensors. Details are classified. - Will continue to test and evaluate OA compliance of SIGINT sensor prototypes in the OATL. - Will continue to develop capabilities that address emerging needs, as identified by the SCWG. - Will continue LOCUST development, integration and test efforts with a focus on autonomy, real-life test event, and large-scale flight test on small UAS. Additionally, will continue to develop detection and geolocation capabilities of CENTCOM and PACOM signals of interest. Details are classified. - Will continue to develop, prototype, and test new software/hardware capabilities and form factors for the CRESTONE system. Details are classified. - Will develop RANGERS, a tactical aircraft roll-on/roll-off collection system effort to further miniaturize the system's form-factor, add Theater Net-Centric Geolocation (TNG), and expand the system's signal of interest (SOI) library to include ELINT threats. - Will develop NORTHSTAR to address ACC Tier 1 and 2 exploitation needs by hosting signals of interest exploitation software on scalable SIGINT sensors to support rapid deployment on a variety of USAF platforms.

FY2026 to FY2027 change

Funding increased due to increased Air Force development in Counter-Long Range Kill Chain initiatives. Additional details available at a higher classfication.

Before the request year

FY2026: the year under way

Prior-year accomplishments and current-year plans from the same exhibit. Context for the FY2027 plan, not a series — an activity partitions its project exactly in the request year, but can under-cover it in earlier years.

FY2026 plans — current year

- Continue to develop new signals capabilities and enhancements. Details are classified. - Enhancing OATL infrastructure to support future SIGINT sensor development and testing. - Continue to pursue capability development and risk reduction and necessary follow-on Phoenix OA support to CI-6/SP-5 Family of Systems, building upon integration following assessments and demonstrations efforts conducted in FY 2024 and FY 2025. - Deliver drop 2 and 3 of the Phoenix OA Software aligned with Big Iron to multiple end users, continue to integrate third-party applications for signals of interest, and assess single-ship/multi-ship geolocation abilities. All other details are classified. - Continue to test and evaluate OA compliance of SIGINT sensor prototypes in the OATL. - Continue to develop capabilities that address emerging needs, as identified by the SCWG. - Continue LOCUST development, integration and test efforts with a focus on autonomy, real-life test event, and large-scale flight test on small UAS. Additionally, continue to develop detection and geolocation capabilities of CENTCOM and PACOM signals of interest. Details are classified. - Continue to develop, prototype, and test new software/hardware capabilities and form factors for the CRESTONE system. Details are classified.

Money

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.

25030.5FY25ACTUAL30.3FY26ENACTED37.9FY27REQUEST
Actual Enacted Request
Fiscal YearEstimate TypeAmount ($M)
FY2025Actual30.5
FY2026Enacted30.3
FY2027Request37.9

This activity is 69% of project 675183's FY2027 request and 39% of PE 0304260F'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.

Where this sits

2 activities in project 675183

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.

Common SIGINT Development — this activity$37.9M ▲ 25%
RC-135 SIGINT Development$17.1M NEW
Source
FY2027 Department of the Air Force RDT&E Budget Justification · Exhibit R-2A · PE 0304260F, project 675183 (President's Budget PB2027). Congressional marks are recorded on the program element, never on an activity.
Machine access
Markdown twin /programs/0304260F/675183/a0.md · MCP mcp.hitchintel.combudget_get_activity