What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 620200 of PE 0602020F. 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 energy investments in power generation, energy storage, energy transfer, and transformative ways to provide power for resilient basing. - Continue, from newly identified efforts, investments in artificial intelligence/ machine learning tools to identify novel materials and efficiencies. - Continue, work commenced in FY 2026 from the FY 2026 newly identified TEO and IPT efforts, investments in artificial intelligence/ machine learning tools to identify novel materials and efficiencies. - Continue commencing newly identified efforts which support immediate priorities of the Department of the Air Force (DAF) Technology Executive Officer (TEO) including efforts identified by the IPTs, increasing targeted risk reduction and technology acceleration within the transformational portfolio.
FY 2027 funding decreased compared to FY 2026 by $11.529 million due to 30% decreased emphasis on feasibility assessments and proof of concept demonstrations to buy down advanced technology development risks. Continuing portfolio activities have been appropriately rescoped. This reduction reflects programmatic adjustments to the DAF Science and Technology portfolio for strategic realignment to optimize core research areas and improve resource efficiency.
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.
- Complete investments in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in data support, software tools, and autonomy, and machine learning to counter adversary capabilities. - Complete future connected, survivable, and agile Autonomous Air-to-Air Refueling platforms to deliver fuel leveraging enterprise activities in autonomy and air vehicle design. - Complete investments in common support equipment that include new capabilities and technology to support flightline support equipment and generate new capabilities that will support agile combat employment operations. - Continue energy investments in power generation, energy storage, energy transfer, and transformative ways to provide power for resilient basing. - Continue commencing newly identified efforts which support immediate priorities of the Department of the Air Force (DAF) Technology Executive Officer (TEO) including efforts for the Integrated Product Teams (IPTs), increasing targeted risk reduction and technology acceleration within the transformational portfolio.
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 | 33.9 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 39.1 |
| FY2027 | Request | 27.6 |
This activity is 63% of project 620200's FY2027 request and 63% of PE 0602020F'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.
3 activities in project 620200
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.