R-2A Activity · President's Budget PB2027

Common Data Link (CDL) Specification Development, Validation, Test and Maintenance

Activity a1·Project 641334 — Common Data Link (CDL)·PE 0305236F·U.S. Air Force
FY2027 Request
$11.7M
▼ 9.3% vs FY2026
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This activity requests $11.7M in FY2027, 44% of project 641334, down 9.3% on FY2026. The R-2A exhibit describes it across FY2026–FY2027, including what the FY2027 money is planned to buy.

FY2027 Request
$11.7M
▼ 9.3% vs FY2026
FY2026 Enacted
$12.9M
▲ 17% vs FY2025
FY2025 Actual
$11.0M
Prior year
Planned work

What the FY2027 request buys

Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 641334 of PE 0305236F. 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 development of vendor and government owned reference implementation of the new LPI/LPD/AJ waveform to perform future test and validation to ensure the CDL specification is accurate and can be built by multiple vendors in the future, therefore keeping the market space open. - Will continue evaluation, analysis and study of network management devices, network and waveform configuration tool development; transition improved technologies into CDL Specification baseline that increases data sharing across Service-specific networks. - Will continue development and advancement of dynamical control algorithms to enable terminals to more efficiently use CDL spectrum. This work is also to validate the CDL Common Control Interface. - Will continue to work with CDL industry partners and DoW Services and Agencies to document, validate, and test common terminal control interfaces through use of commercially recognized standards. - Will continue configuration control of the CDL architecture, standards, specifications and reference artifacts to support open interoperability and open competition. - Will continue development of JITC CDL test equipment capable of compliance testing to the latest, validated version of CDL specifications and enhance DoW-wide interoperability testing. - Will continue development of NCDL Aurora waveforms.

FY2026 to FY2027 change

The reduced budgetary allocations for Accomplishments/Planned Programs come from a department of War program funding cut of 20% across the FYDP. The Common Data Link (CDL) program focused on core competencies of waveform specification maintenance and updates, as well as cryptographic core modernization and SERD 2.0 compliance.

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 development of vendor and government owned reference implementation of the new LPI/LPD/AJ waveform to perform future test and validation to ensure the CDL specification is accurate and can be built by multiple vendors in the future, therefore keeping the market space open. - Continue evaluation, analysis and study of network management devices, network and waveform configuration tool development; transition improved technologies into CDL Specification baseline that increases data sharing across Service-specific networks. - Continue development and advancement of dynamical control algorithms to enable terminals to more efficiently use CDL spectrum. This work is also to validate the CDL Common Control Interface. - Continue to work with CDL industry partners and DoD Services and Agencies to document, validate, and test common terminal control interfaces through use of commercially recognized standards. - Continue configuration control of the CDL architecture, standards, specifications and reference artifacts to support open interoperability and open competition. - Continue development of JITC CDL test equipment capable of compliance testing to the latest, validated version of CDL specifications and enhance DoW-wide interoperability testing. - Will publish Network Common Data Link (NCDL) Aurora Mode 501 Specification.

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.

011.0FY25ACTUAL12.9FY26ENACTED11.7FY27REQUEST
Actual Enacted Request
Fiscal YearEstimate TypeAmount ($M)
FY2025Actual11.0
FY2026Enacted12.9
FY2027Request11.7

This activity is 44% of project 641334's FY2027 request and 44% of PE 0305236F'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

3 activities in project 641334

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 program-element page.

Common Data Link (CDL) Specification Development, Validation, Test and Maintenance — this activity$11.7M ▼ 9%
Common Data Link (CDL) Technology Advancement$10.2M ▼ 28%
Common Data Link (CDL) Cryptographic Modernization$4.5M ▼ 17%
Source
FY2027 Department of the Air Force RDT&E Budget Justification · Exhibit R-2A · PE 0305236F, project 641334 (President's Budget PB2027). Congressional marks are recorded on the program element, never on an activity.
Machine access
Markdown twin /programs/0305236F/641334/a1.md · MCP mcp.hitchintel.combudget_get_activity