What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 1503 of PE 0602750N. 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 feasibility studies and possible development of terminal defense fire control architectures that support low cost and easy integration onto ships and into expeditionary forces for terminal defense suitable for multiple engagement weapons. - Continue investigation into advanced propulsion techniques for high speed weapons; main focus on air-breathing concepts. - Continue study and development of air-launched missile concepts in response to evolving requirements for both anti-air and anti-surface applications. Define the key component technologies and associated maturation roadmaps required to enable the transition of these weapon concepts to meet planned future weapons development. - Continue development and maturation of key enabling missile component technologies that are necessary to meet the Fleet's requirement to: engage both air and surface targets at greater ranges, reduce weapon size to increase launch platform carriage capacity, and introduce affordability to meet the need for weapon quantity. - Continue investigation of technologies needed for delivering autonomous weapons with complete kill chain coverage to both manned and unmanned surface vessels and airborne platforms. Emphasis will be on developing containerized, modular, and platform agnostic systems. - Continue investigating incorporation of additive manufacturing processes and novel materials into future weapons concepts in order to reduce weight and manufacturing complexity. - Complete investigation into varied technologies that could mitigate impacts of adverse navigational environments upon weapon systems employed in denied areas. - Complete investigation of technologies needed to increase capacity of shipboard launch systems in both numbers and types of weapons. Also, investigate possible application of industrial automation techniques to weapon handling and loading. Development of multi-objective optimization engine to coordinate shore-based fires with Naval Long Range Fires by air and surface shooters. - Initiate investigation into novel materials, energetics, and designs for development of advanced warheads, enabling increased effects with potentially reduced size and weight.
Funding increase between FY26 and FY27 is due to greater investment in technologies leading to broader, more affordable, and potentially more effective means for shipboard terminal defense. Offensively, there is increased investment in missile technology to achieve greater performance, affordability, and capacity.
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.
Continue: - Feasibility studies and possible development of terminal defense fire control architectures that support low cost and easy integration onto ships and into expeditionary forces for terminal defense suitable for multiple engagement weapons. - Investigation into varied technologies that could mitigate impacts of adverse navigational environments upon weapon systems employed in denied areas. - Investigation into advanced propulsion techniques for high speed weapons; main focus on air-breathing concepts. Study and development of air-launched missile concepts in response to evolving requirements for both anti-air and anti-surface applications. Define the key component technologies and associated maturation roadmaps required to enable the transition of these weapon concepts to meet planned future weapons development. - Development and maturation of key enabling missile component technologies that are necessary to meet the Fleet's requirement to: engage both air and surface targets at greater ranges, reduce weapon size to increase launch platform carriage capacity, and introduce affordability to meet the need for weapon quantity. - Investigation of technologies needed for delivering autonomous weapons with complete kill chain coverage to both manned and unmanned surface vessels and airborne platforms. Emphasis will be on developing containerized, modular, and platform agnostic systems. - Investigation of technologies needed to increase capacity of shipboard launch systems in both numbers and types of weapons. Also, investigate possible application of industrial automation techniques to weapon handling and loading. Complete: - Investigating advanced material and structural capabilities in aerodynamics for high-speed/hypersonic weapons. Initiate: - Development of multi-objective optimization engine to coordinate shore-based fires with Naval Long Range Fires by air and surface shooters. - Investigate incorporation of additive manufacturing processes and novel materials into future weapons concepts in order to reduce weight and manufacturing complexity.
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 | 0.0 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 16.1 |
| FY2027 | Request | 21.0 |
This activity is 67% of project 1503's FY2027 request and 6.9% of PE 0602750N'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.
6 activities in project 1503
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.