What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project MSL-01 of PE 0602025E. 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.
- Complete builds of operationally relevant magnetohydrodynamic prototype pumps and conduct operational testing. - Conduct operational analysis and assessment of scalability study, evaluate future transition paths for PUMP technology. - Perform full scale inlet testing to verify modeling and simulation tools for VLEO inlets. - Complete testing and characterization of low drag materials systems developed for low earth orbit (LEO). - Deploy low drag materials to a persistent low Earth orbit spacecraft. - Develop and validate microstructure-informed lifing models to predict the performance of additively manufactured structural components. - Demonstrate the transferability of the sensor package and lifing models across two additive manufacturing platforms and two feedstock suppliers. - Explore applying previously developed methods to predict the service life and failure modes of a challenge part. - Demonstrate novel intrinsic approaches for metal-like toughness in ceramics and manufacture bulk ceramic part of more significant thickness, while also exceeding even greater flexural strength and even greater fracture toughness.
The FY 2027 decrease reflects a shift from space launch and system development activities to testing and demonstration.
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.
- Deliver experimental payloads for in-space demonstration of polymer composite manufacturing and radio frequency antenna structure assembly. - Launch and conduct material manufacturing and assembly technology demonstrations in low earth orbit. - Complete thruster testing for sustained operations in very low earth orbit (VLEO). - Test optimized design of air-collecting inlet and use experimental data for model validation. - Test low-drag materials for use in low Earth orbit to understand drag and degradation characteristics. - Test low-drag coatings applied to actual spacecraft components for preservation of functional performance to de-risk near-term inclusion on flight spacecraft. - Complete design for the prototype and scalability study for an operationally relevant magnetohydrodynamic pump. - Complete electrode material testing and concept feasibility verification to determine candidates suitable for an operationally relevant prototype magnetohydrodynamic pump. - Develop sensor packages capable of detecting micro-scale defects during metal additive manufacturing. - Develop microstructure model of additively manufactured components that include defects. - Explore and develop microstructure-based component-lifing models to predict the performance of additively manufactured structural hardware. - Develop and fabricate bulk ceramic test coupons that are of a certain minimum thickness, while also exceeding a particular flexural strength and a specific fracture toughness. - Assess ceramic microstructure stability through elevated temperature exposure. - Add additional complexity to material composition to ensure system can operate with unstable supply lines. - Plan testing and validation of material conversion capabilities for a widely varied scrap materials. - Verify and validate complex material predictions with unknown and contaminated material. - Perform burst pressure test on pressure vessels to validate material performance prediction capabilities. - Execute end-to-end design validation analysis of scrap material conversion, material property prediction, and redesign of a rocket.
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 | 34.3 |
| FY2027 | Request | 20.1 |
This activity is 15% of project MSL-01's FY2027 request and 1.2% of PE 0602025E'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 MSL-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.