What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 040 of PE 0603161D8Z. 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 RDT&E investments in the collection, analysis, and evaluation of ground and airborne post-detonation debris samples. -- Continue to support collection: Improve ground collection capabilities and tools to accelerate mission timelines. -- Continue to support analysis: Improve debris and prompt signals analysis capabilities and expertise development to accelerate analysis and attribution timelines. -- Continue to support evaluation: Expand the debris diagnostic and prompt evaluation capability to expedite the attribution process. Develop and design IT infrastructure system of tools to rapidly generate and disseminate nuclear forensic results across the Department and interagency leadership. - Continue to improve the Quality Assurance process for ensuring that the surrogate samples used in NTNF exercises best match anticipated real-world NTNF ground and airborne samples. - Continue to develop, design, and validate new speed of light sensor systems to increase the portability and scalability of prompt signals coverage. - Begin Windows 11 upgrade on Harvester particulate collection pods, as well as develop airworthiness package and conduct successful demonstration of Harvester particulate collection pods on an MQ-9A using Proliferated Low Earth Orbit satellite connectivity.
FY 2026 to FY 2027 decrease reflects the transfer of funding to 0604161D8Z to further mature capability for eventual deployment.
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.
- RDT&E investments in the collection, analysis, and evaluation of ground and airborne post-detonation debris samples. -- Collection Support: Improve ground collection capabilities and tools to accelerate mission timelines. Develop requirements documents and begin conceptual design prototypes for next generation unmanned airborne and autonomous ground collection systems. -- Analysis Support: Improve debris and prompt signals analysis capabilities and expertise development to accelerate analysis and attribution timelines. -- Evaluation support: Expand the debris diagnostic and prompt evaluation capability to expedite the attribution process. Develop and design IT infrastructure system of tools to rapidly generate and disseminate nuclear forensic results across the Department and interagency leadership. - Improve the Quality Assurance process ensuring that the surrogate samples used in NTNF exercises best match anticipated real-world NTNF ground and airborne samples. - Develop, design, and validate new speed of light sensor systems to increase the portability and scalability of prompt signals coverage. - Develop airworthiness package and conduct successful demonstration of Harvester particulate collection pods on an MQ-9A using Geo-synchronous Earth Orbit satellite connectivity.
- RDT&E investment in the collection, analysis, and evaluation of ground and airborne post-detonation debris samples. -- Collection: Improve ground collection capabilities and tools to accelerate mission timelines. Develop requirements documents and begin conceptual design prototypes for next generation unmanned airborne and autonomous ground collection systems. -- Analysis: Improve debris and prompt signals analysis capabilities and expertise development at DoD laboratories to accelerate analysis and attribution timelines. -- Evaluation: Expand the debris diagnostic and prompt evaluation capability to speed the attribution process. Develop and design IT systems of tools to rapidly generate and disseminate nuclear forensic results across the DoD and to interagency leadership. - Improve the Quality Assurance process for assuring that the surrogate samples used in NTNF exercises best match anticipated real-world NTNF ground and airborne samples. - Develop, design, and validate new speed of light sensor systems to increase the portability and scalability of prompt signals coverage. - Complete Airworthiness T2 Package for integrating Harvester particulate collection pods on an MQ-9A Block 5 GEO and conduct successful flight demonstration.
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 | 29.1 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 23.8 |
| FY2027 | Request | 17.9 |
This activity is 100% of project 040's FY2027 request and 40% of PE 0603161D8Z'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 040
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.