What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project ACS-01 of PE 0602023E. 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.
- Build software- in-the-loop simulations (SWIL) to verify mission planning and subsystem performance. - Conduct closed-loop SWIL testing with applied vehicle and payload concept constraints. - Verify that sufficient control authority is maintained by autonomous navigation and enhanced efficiency propulsion systems. - Verify spacecraft payload viability for sensing resolution and coverage through orbital mission simulation. - Conduct Preliminary Design Review (PDR) and subsystem validation testing.
The FY 2027 increase reflects a shift from CoDR and prototype testing to PDR and validation testing.
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.
- Conduct feasibility analysis for optimized spacecraft navigation, propulsion, and sensing for cislunar operations, including resource exploration. - Conduct System Requirements Review (SRR) and Conceptual Design Review (CoDR) for the LASSO spacecraft. - Build lunar mining lifecycle economic model. - Conduct prototype testing of critical sub-systems for lunar resource exploration spacecraft. - Build very low lunar orbital simulation with full lunar variable gravity model.
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) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2026 | Enacted | 19.6 |
| FY2027 | Request | 19.9 |
This activity is 20% of project ACS-01's FY2027 request and 18% of PE 0602023E'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.
8 activities in project ACS-01
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.