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.
- Finalize experiment plan for autonomous control using nuclear physics predictions and advanced, combined neutronics models. - Develop air-breathing secondary fuel cells with far greater gravimetric energy density than current comparable energy solutions, while remaining safe, rechargeable, and easily manufactured. - Assess feasibility of re-purposing hot, high-density plasma used in fusion experiments for electric propulsion applications. - Develop laboratory autonomous control of Hall thruster spacecraft electric propulsion systems, tying state identification to qualification of data-driven digital twins. - Advance predictive modeling tools and experimental techniques to forecast the degradation mechanisms and lifespan of new infrastructure materials. - Initiate development of tabletop quantum simulators for data-informed predictive modeling and aeronautical design. - Perform proof-of-concept demonstrations of quantum sensor networks with beyond state-of-the-art spatiotemporal resolution for extreme environments. - Perform initial proof-of-concept demonstrations of the core mechanisms for levitated Inertial Measurement Unit. - Perform initial proof-of-concept demonstrations of radio-frequency (RF) systems capable of identifying signals of interest, rapidly tuning to their carrier frequency, and amplifying their message by dynamically adjusting the receiver s signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). - Integrate computational and hardware capabilities into complete capability for accelerating timelines of making and manufacturing novel designs of military systems.
The FY 2027 increase reflects studies and concepts initiations including, but not limited to, applied research in development and manufacturability of advanced fuel cells and novel spacecraft propulsion systems, and exploration of metamaterials and fabrication methods for advanced RF systems.
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.
- Advancing nuclear reactor physics models in order to enhance reactor control capabilities and safer operations with predictive methods. - Assess potential for autonomous control of Hall thruster spacecraft electric propulsion systems by validating sensor optimization using manifold estimation to robustly identify plasma dynamics. - Investigate quantum sensor networks with enhanced sensitivity arising from an interplay between quantum many-body interactions and noise-engineering techniques. - Initiate development of gravity defying levitated Inertial Measurement Units. - Explore multifunctional materials, new fabrication methods, and design techniques for radio-frequency systems capable of identifying signals of interest, rapidly tuning to their carrier frequency, and amplifying their message by dynamically adjusting the receiver's signal-to-noise-ratio. - Select critical hardware assemblies for production analysis in order to drastically shrink the time from developing a new prototype to manufacturing it at mass scale.
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 | 7.2 |
| FY2027 | Request | 13.7 |
This activity is 10% of project MSL-01's FY2027 request and 0.8% 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.