RDT&E Project · President's Budget PB2027

Laser Technology

Project 625173·PE 0602605F — Directed Energy Technology·U.S. Air Force·BA2
FY2027 Request
$50.8M
▼ 3.8% vs FY2026
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Project 625173 — Laser Technology requests $50.8M in FY2027, 55% of the $91.8M requested for program element 0602605F, down 3.8% on FY2026. 1 R-2A activity decomposes the request.

FY2027 Request
$50.8M
▼ 3.8% vs FY2026
FY2026 Enacted
$52.8M
▲ 15% vs FY2025
FY2025 Actual
$46.0M
Prior year
Project detail

What project 625173 buys

This project conducts research to advance the state-of-the-art in continuous wave (CW) and pulsed laser sources, optical beam combination techniques, optical beam control technologies, optical beam propagation methodologies, lethality enhancement techniques via laser effect testing, and the integration of these technologies into laboratory-level system demonstration packages for Air Force applications such as counter unmanned aerial systems (c-UAS), counter intelligence/ surveillance/reconnaissance (c-ISR), and counter missiles (c-Missile) for high value airborne asset (HVAA) protection, and point defense. This project conducts modeling, simulation, and analysis to guide science and technology investments and for assessing the military utility of the technologies being developed. Technologies developed under this project feed directly into laser system technology demonstrations to graduate the technology to a higher technology readiness level (TRL) under Program Element 0603605F / Advanced Weapons Technology, Project 633151 / Directed Energy Technology Development, Budget Activity (BA) 2.

Funding trajectory

Project 625173 funding, FY2025–FY2031

Prior years are actuals, the budget year is the request, and the outyears are the FYDP plan. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure. Projects carry the full five-year plan; the activities inside them stop at the budget year.

2550046.0FY25ACTUAL52.8FY26ENACTED50.8FY27REQUEST53.4FY2858.0FY2959.9FY3061.6FY31
Actual Enacted Request Outyear (FYDP)
Fiscal YearEstimate TypeAmount ($M)
FY2025Actual46.0
FY2026Enacted52.8
FY2027Request50.8
FY2028Outyear53.4
FY2029Outyear58.0
FY2030Outyear59.9
FY2031Outyear61.6
Inside the project

1 accomplishment / planned program

The R-2A exhibit — the only level of the budget that describes work that has not happened yet. Activities carry the prior, current and budget year only, no five-year plan. Each describes FY2027 work in enough detail to have its own page; the rest are shown here in full. Coverage is partial across the corpus, so count activities, never total them.

FY2025 actual$46.0M
FY2026 enacted$48.8M
FY2027 request$50.8M

-Continue in-house development, validation, and transition of predictive, high-fidelity multi-physics modeling tools required to optimize laser weapon system design concepts. Activities include: validating and deploying models, developing the modeling tools needed to support future laser weapon system capability demonstrations, and…

Read the FY2027 plan →