What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project DE3 of PE 0602150A. 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 to enhance strategic capabilities, commence with the design and development of advanced beam control technologies and algorithms. This effort will prioritize the development of critical component-level concepts to facilitate integration into larger aperture systems. Simultaneously, establish a stabilized pointing environment essential for enabling long-range, directed energy engagements. Further refine advanced adaptive optics algorithms, tailoring them for optimal performance in high-altitude operational environments. Expand the performance envelope of the Automated Aimpoint Selection Tracker to ensure precision and lethality.
Funding increase is due to the expansion of the development of technologies for directed energy missions to include additional pacing threats with increased hardness at longer ranges to include Cruise Missiles and other ballistic effectors. Funding increase supports extending the range of Directed Energy Weapons to reach threats at greater ranges with precision.
FY2025–FY2026: what came before
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 development of beam control technologies and algorithms to increase the effective range of a directed energy weapon system. Mature component-level concepts to support readiness for transition. Develop a stabilized pointing environment for a large-aperture high energy laser beam expander. Conduct advanced adaptive optics algorithm development in a laboratory environment, with a TRL 4 demonstration planned for FY26. Continue optimization of laser-quality tracking algorithms.
Continued research and development of beam control technologies that will enable a high energy laser weapon system to extend the effective range. Continued development of 50-cm class high energy laser beam expander with Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 laboratory validation. Continued development of advanced adaptive optics systems in a laboratory environment with a TRL 4 demonstration. Continued development of laser quality tracking improvements.
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 | 5.2 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 5.5 |
| FY2027 | Request | 11.1 |
This activity is 100% of project DE3's FY2027 request and 31% of PE 0602150A'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.
1 activity in project DE3
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.