What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 8277 of PE 0305242M. 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 ES product correction of deficiencies, pre-planned product improvements, and air vehicle integration efforts. -Maintain lab development, integration and test capabilities. -Continue to refine AI/ML ATR algorithms and expand the scope and speed of object classification at the tactical edge. -Expand AI/ML sensor package with pre-planned capabilities. -Continue to transition C4ISR of advanced technologies and payloads to UAS programs. -Continue CDS redesign for NSA Raise the Bar (RTB) compliance, and cyber security tasking. -Continue to evaluate new sensor technologies, improvements to enabling technologies, and prototype design and fabrication in support of the development and fielding operations of UAS platforms and payloads. -Continue to utilize additive manufacturing techniques, tools, processes, and requirements to enable installation production capability for UAS components.
Increase will expand efforts associated with integrating the AI/ML ATR and Agile Model Refinement (AMR) capability with the ES, AI/ML, CSW, CDS and WAMI payloads, resulting in refined and enhanced Sensor Payload Suite capabilities. The increase will also expand target recognition data and improve the model library deployed with the AI/ML ATR payload.
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.
-Continue ES product correction of deficiencies, pre-planned product improvements, and integration -Maintain lab development, integration and test capabilities. -Continue to improve and integrate AI/ML capability. -Continue to transition C4ISR of advanced technologies and payloads to UAS programs. -Continue Cross Domain Solution (CDS) redesign and cyber security tasking. -Continue to evaluate new sensor technologies, improvements to enabling technologies, and prototype design and fabrication in support of the development and fielding operations of UAS platforms and payloads. -Continue to utilize additive manufacturing techniques, tools, processes, and requirements to enable installation production capability for UAS components.
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 | 9.8 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 7.7 |
| FY2027 | Request | 16.5 |
This activity is 80% of project 8277's FY2027 request and 80% of PE 0305242M'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.
4 activities in project 8277
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.